Comments on: Communication

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:23:10 +0000

“Taken together with his glorification of individualism, his hostility toward possessing and being defined by something held in common seems clear.”

This is silly. As a traditional conservative, I have never really understood the extreme attitude “crunchy cons”, agrarians, and the like take toward Limbaugh and his followers. True, he is a libertarian (with a few conservative instincts), so naturally they emphasize the place of individual in community. However they recognize it. Economic freedom is not possible without a community of those who believe in economic freedom. The recognition of the personhood of the unborn is not possible without a community of people willing to go to bat politically for it (as Limbaugh regularly does). You folks sound like idealistic scolds who are willing to criticize your own before the nihilistic Hegelian Marxists who constitute the left. Take this sentence for example:

” it seems to me that the more conservatives define themselves in relation to these radio communications from fervent individualists the less likely they are going to be to engage in the kind of hard cultural work of building up their own communities and laying the foundations of the common culture they wish to pass on to their children.”

BAH! A haughty vocabulary does not make up for fundamentally misunderstanding those who have much in common with you…

By: Empedocles

Empedocles — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:46:23 +0000

“Since the word communication refers to providing listeners with a share in the discussion, it implies at least a common language, which suggests that there is also a common culture whose values are being conveyed through that language. These would be common cultural values formed in communities. ”
The relation between language and community is very interesting one. Here is a post that goes into detail about how language supports social capital and community.
http://apoxonbothyourhouses.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-diversity-destroys-social-capital.html

By: Boz

Boz — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:40:18 +0000

Darren G.,
“Imagined Communities” might be one of the most over-cited books ever, but it’s pretty helpful here. You’ve put your finger on the nub of talk radio’s dubious achievement–devising new ways for us to “be together” without experiencing any genuine or intelligible obligation to each other. Frightening stuff.

By: N. P. West

N. P. West — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:37:39 +0000

Here here! You also might want to have links to traditionalist organizations such as the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the New Centurion Program, the Trinity Forum, the Wilbur Foundation, the National Humanities Institute, and the Edmund Burke Society. Also, there is a great resource on the Second Spring website (run under the auspices of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts where Russell Kirk’s son-in-law is president), the old Caelum et Terra website, and the old New Pantagruel website.

By: DarrenG

DarrenG — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:37:07 +0000

I’m not sure Limbaugh is a good example of the point Terry makes. Most dittoheads recognize they are part of a community, but Rush can’t allow himself that realization because it might imply that he would have some sort of duty or responsibility to the community, which appears to be an unthinkable outcome for him.

Terry’s point seems to be that communities are becoming smaller and more isolated, which I’m not sure I agree with, but even so it’s a very different point from Rush’s outright rejection of the concept of community.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:21:32 +0000

It’s hard to not want to mention Anderson’s Imagined Communities in this context. The mass media of talk radio creates its particular community of listeners united via their common causes and common enemies. Of course, the analogy to Anderson is also not perfect. It’s easy to speculate, but a lot harder to come up with the correct answer.

Talk radio itself seems adept at generating a sense of ‘otherness’ for enemies both domestic and abroad. If we were to think of the most basic summary of Imagined Communities, the basis for nationalism, and thus a sense of community with citizens of the same country lies in creating the Other out of foreign powers. Contemporary partisan politics perhaps diminishes this by placing significant emphasis upon the enemy within the state, who could be any one of your neighbors or co-workers. Those demonized in the mass media likewise respond by Other-izing the community of listeners, who also occupy lateral positions in society.

Also, a compelling argument could be made that the breakdown in real, personal communications you cite from Lukacs could explain in some sense why, in a sort of Andersonian sense, the community we speculate would be generated in the listenership of talk radio would not translate into a genuine sense of community in the traditional sense we think of it.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:54:36 +0000

People are either Atoms (individuae) or Adams (personae). The truth is that we are born into a particular language and that alone is forgotten for the sake of individualism. Perhaps no man is an island, but even if that aphorism is thought about, islands are contiguous and share a common ground. Individualism, as much as collectivism, is alienating. Community exists within the tension between extremes. Yes, there are particular people, but there is also a general group. Communities are not formed by a social contract. No, we find ourselves in them before we can ever "consent" to anything. Communities are far more spiritual than material. A community represents a unio mystica whereas today's conception of it treats it as a conglomeration of molecules: a unio molecula.