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"You're so Nice. You're not Good, you're not Bad, you're just... Nice."
Into the Woods is a 1987 Sondheim musical (and a 2014 live action movie), throwing together a bunch of Brothers Grimm fairie tales into a stew, and then asking what happens after happily ever after. While later pieces in the same genre would often re-invent, twist or just completely invert the morality and drives of their main characters to provide a more morally 'complicated' story, Into the Woods is a good bit more restrained in its re-imagining. The heroes remain protagonists and the villains jerks; it's just what this does to them and those around them that changes.
In particular, the tweaks here recognize that one good day does not make for a happy life, nor does everything that is heroic end up being good. Because this is a musical, and subtlety is for cowards, this is explicitly stated in song, with the villainous Witch belting out complaints about how the protagonists are Nice. And this predates the Nice Guy discourse; she's complaining that they are the sort of people who end up being protagonists.
Mitt Romney released a self-titled biography recently, and did a related media tour, as he
saw the writing on the wallretired, and there were certain parallels that hit my brain and wouldn't leave since, nor have been left unassisted by other events since. Like no shortage of claims from him and his allies, quite a lot of the focus is on how his particular brand of Dignified, Professional, and Polite conservatism is important, and how its federal prominence has recently and near-completely collapsed. I can get some specific quotes for those interested, but chances are very good you've heard them before, and it's far from specific to Romney or even to conservative critics of populism. There's no shortage of politician, political, and non-political actors that really develop a personality and identity as being nice, above all."I'm not Good, I'm not Nice, but I'm Right."
While the play follows several different viewpoint characters, much of the connecting force and impetus for events comes from the Witch: in the first act, she needs the Baker to collect items to cure her curse of ugliness, she took away Rapunzel in her tower, her magic beans get Jack to the giant's tower, so on. While the second act is more about the consequences falling from those decisions, she still plays a serious role. Even up until her removal from the play in the final act, she's the one with ideas.
And she's not a good person, and they're not exactly nice ideas! She's gets the Baker to cooperate with the aid of a curse she placed on his house decades ago, she took Rapunzel from the Baker's father, she's just an all-around unpleasant (if funny) person to be around. Her final demand is to have Jack, to let him be crushed by the Giantess. If it weren't for how important those ideas were, no one would stand her.
For conservatives, especially the sort of conservatives who complains a lot about Romney being a RINO or use the phrase 'controlled opposition', there's a lot to complain about important and truthful ideas that either weren't getting voiced, or are only given enough attention to disclaim or throw under the bus. In many cases, it is that niceness that acts as an argument against recognizing even the strongest version of these positions; but even the strawman version where the bloodless (as far as the death of a child can be bloodless) story gets no attention and justifies the cruel story exists. I've pointed before to VanDyke as presenting vital information about procedural gamesmanship -- not despite, but because of the very traits that lead to him being seen as unqualified by the ABA.
... but the Witch is not always, actually, that right. The Last Midnight (and the Witch being literally eaten by the earth in the film version) is driven by her demand, and the rest of the cast's refusal, to surrender Jack to the Giant's Wife, who is currently in the process of stomping half the kingdom and much of its subjects flat. That demand might be ethically justifiable given Jack's killing of the Giant, but given that the Giantess is nearly blind and squishing much of the populace of the kingdom by accident or indifference, very far from clear that it'd actually salve her anger (especially in the film version). Even small asides, like the growled promise that the Baker will never find his sister who can never be reached, often end up wrong. Her prophecy about the protagonists being doomed to repeat their sins and the sins of their forebears, unsurprisingly, doesn't last to the curtain call.
The obvious metaphor today would be to point toward "they're eating dogs", which lacks even Vance's deniability of 'heard reports of' or the memeability of the oral sex joke. But that's just recency bias, and it wasn't even the most recent one at the end of that debate night: he and his quite willing to throw out the implausible (bluetooth earrings!) with the at-least-precedented (leaked debate questions) to the overt and obvious (ABC 'factchecking' things wrong). Call it bullshitting if you want, but at best it's distracting, and more often it's only defensible at all by pointing to the rest of the politician populace -- ie, no defense at all. And it's not like he's alone, here. I'm not a huge fan of Ken White of PopeHat calling everyone he doesn't like a dogfucker or shoot up federalist society meetings, but it'd even more damning when he yells those sorta things and also can't be bothered to take his 'serious' writings seriously.
((For a lighter-weight comparison that everyone involved would absolutely loathe, Neil deGrasse Tyson's schtick has increasing focused on what would charitably be called improving awareness of
nitpickinglyspecific scientific knowledge, at the cost of coming across as obnoxiously uncharitable... and also doesn't even do that.))"You're all liars and thieves... Oh, why bother? You'll just do what you do."
Except... one of the Witch's mistakes is claiming that the protagonists and their fellow travelers are nice. The Baker steals Red Riding Hood's cape and tricks Jack out of his cow, his wife cheats, Cinderella is gormless, Rapunzel has no idea how to interact with normal people, Red Riding Hood's turned her trauma from the wolf eating her not into grl pwr but into oft-unchecked aggression, Jack's a sociopath and a thief, the princes are "charming, not sincere". Again, no small part of the play is pointing out that the acts needed to turn a wish true don't come free, and also that they're often not exactly nice things to actually do. At best, the protagonists are willing to rationalize or excuse their faults and bad acts; at common, they project them on each other; at worst, they just don't want to have to think about it. There is literally a song of nothing but that!
(tbf, not one of the better ones)
Romney portrays himself as a man of dignity and kindness, and no small number of his biggest fans can't help but agree... at the same time that Romney gives constant asides about what specific person he disrespects most, or tells stories about how he and his political allies "burst into laughter" as soon as the target of that laughter left the room. The famous 47% gaffe might have played particularly poorly in Peoria, but it's not like the man was slow to. It gets worse if you look at the guys who tried to work for his campaign.
And, of course, it's not limited to Romney -- the currently sitting President who ran on his moderation also released a first-party political ad including an innocent citizen as a "white supremacist", still up on twitter, the people opposed to Romney -- or even to politicians. I have and will complain at length about pundits who have strong words and split the finest hairs about extremism in pursuit of virtue, and then lose track of the topic entirely as soon as there own vice comes to challenge. This sorta perverse combination of Abilene Paradox and whisper-or-not-so-whisper cruelty campaign is frustratingly common even down to small-scale organizations.
There's an excuse that the Kind get outsized and
meanoutspoken response, and that's what drives people who made it their brand to occasionally fall to snark and crude response. At best, it's an excuse for incivility; more often, it's an excuse waved before slapping someone for placing the last straw. Kindness has its limits"Oh, why bother? You'll just do what you do."
Unfortunately, this stanza is about where the metaphor falls apart: the Witch decides she's rather exit the stage than continue to deal with these putzes, throwing away her magic beans and inviting every and all curses just to get away from them. The odds of Trump ever deciding to voluntarily be anywhere but the centre of the spotlight is about nil. Nor would Trump be willing to act
the scapegoatresponsible, as the Witch offers when she gives her ultimatum -- she'd take all the blame, be responsible for all their faults, if only she gets to try to make the problem go away. And the problem is far broader than him. We're not getting away from this just because one politician retires.Even before we get to the problem of exploring the chasm between “I for one welcome abandoning anything remotely conservative” and “I must be the most belligerent man to walk the face of earth if I want to be based”, is it even possible to get kind Abileners or honest belligerent assholes? I'm not saying that would be good, but it's bad when the bad option can't live up to its own awful marketing! Forget a Buddha-like calm detachment; it's hard to avoid calling morons morons no matter how much you know it's not worth it, and many of the important things for belligerent assholes to discuss are hard or impossible to really 'know'.
Is there a space in between those two points, even theoretically? Even before we get to the pragmatic considerations or human failings, is there even theoretical space where one could be a polite and civil critic who still takes likely-but-unpleasant discussions seriously? (Not just the right: can the progressive movement surface its more serious critiques, without #KillAllMen or Guillotine Rose fandom tagging along?) I'd say it was one a goal for the rationalist movement, but that's just an indirect way of saying it's not gonna happen.
If not at the individual level, are these perhaps organizational workarounds? One can at least imagine a straight-man/wise-guy combo that distributes responsibility such that the overt temptations are at least not as present, and that's historically been no small part of the role of public relations, but does that actually buy you anything? Or does this just drive the problem one layer earlier, where the organization instead will be either compromised or ripped apart?
I recently read the full Abolition of Man for what might be the first time in 15 - 20 years and it struck me just how contemporary a lot of it felt.
Lewis spends the bulk of the book arguing against the postmodernism in general and the deconstructionist mindset in particular on the grounds that it is fundementally anti-enlightenment and anti-western. The core argument being that these impulses "must inevitably dissolve into moral absurditity" and it's hard not to read the absurdities he describes in both your post and @RenOS's below. Granted he's writing this in early 1943 so theres a whole load of extra shit going on that goes unmentioned in the book but it's interesting to see a prototype/precursor of later internet arguments over whether aithiests can be moral actors in the idea that totalitarian dictatorships like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are the default endstate of unrestrained liberalism because if being polite and rational are your only values, you'll go along with anything (including tyranny and mass murder) and anything can and will be rationalized.
Bringing this back to your post. Romney in 2012 was very much a compromise candidate. The go to example on both sides for "reasonable centerist" and it did not protect him from having his name dragged through the mud. The lesson the GOP-base took away from 2012 is that being a "reasonable centerist" gains you nothing, the democrats will hate you regardless.
A common sentiment you'll see in a lot of conservative spaces is that for too long people like Romney, the Cheneys, French, Et Al. have been putting politeness and "not rocking the boat" before anything else, and this has led them to regularly enable and defend numerous bad actors. "Trumpism" is, if anything, a reaction to this percieved tendency.
This is probably a post in itself, but something Lewis gets into is how being "nice" is not the same as being "good" and being "meek" doesn't mean being spineless despite the efforts of postmodernist thinkers to confate the two.
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I Love "Into the Woods", it's the best musical.
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This
is just blatantly uncharitable.
And it isn't nice from your behalf to be calling right wingers who aren't abandoning anything remotely conservative being the most bellgerent men to walk the face of the earth, and so what you demand as right wingers to behave like, comes off as an attempt to control them.
The rationalist crowd is not substantially different from the Romney who was a BLM supporter, uniparty perspective. Nor are they, and associated figures like Hanania, and Yglesias above and beyond behaving rather uncivilly. There are people who fail to be nice honest and objective.
The reality is that liberals, including those who have been annoyed by some of the bad behavior of their side start from a conclusion that condemns the right, because they are against it an d want to control it. At such, the right will never be good enough.
In terms of the right, it isn't true that there isn't space in between. Rather what is happening is an inability and unwillingness to render to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and to admit the legitimate and good points made by rightists, because they are inherently against the points and the people making them.
Never will any political coalition even on the issues they are mostly correct on, will not avoid in focusing on areas that are more doubtful too, when making their points. Part of treating political discourse accurately would then be to not miss the forest of the trees, and prioritise things accurately.
This tweet makes some good points on this issue:
https://x.com/hpmcd1/status/1834339581220606449
However, Trump can be directionally wrong on some issues too and this tweet underestimates the dishonesty of Harris side on the migration and various debates.
In terms of what is happening in Springfield Ohio there isn't an equivalency between the two sides. The one that brought 20000+ Haitians, and funds it through NGO networks, and is trying to replace Americans, and the side that opposes it.
When Ed Yudkowsky for example agreed with an ex reddit admin that right wingers have been banned more so by reddit mods because they break the rules more, and not because they have been targeted for their ideology, he was engaging in dishonesty that gets more plausible deniability.
Another relevant issue in regards to the norms discussion and the behavior of lib/rationalist space is that righteous anger that is proportionate is also necessary and good in politics, while uncontrolled and irrational rage is bad as is irrational indifference. When I see angry relatives of a murdered son, wife, demanding justice, that is an example of indignation that leads to justice and much better than indifference, or excuses. So there is a problem with the righteous anger from the right being pathologized by people who are unrightfully hateful towards those having a proportionate response to genuine injustices at their expense. Another problem that goes along is n trying to censor them. And this being conflated with people who complain about fake injustices, and in doing so commit genuine injustices. It is actually good to be tolerant of people having legitimate gripes and be intolerant towards those who are promoting unreasonable bs, to screw over the first.
There are no centrist liberals/supposed moderates as a sizable faction who prioritize objectivity and being nice here to save people. That space doesn't exist as a sizable faction, and the faction that paints itself in such colors they have their obvious biases and hostility towards right wingers, on areas the rightists are correct about.
When it comes to the uniparty vs dissident right conflict, on various issues people like Romney who are nice to leftists but cruel to rightists, can have a more unhinged view. Take for example warmongering. Trump can also share this issue, like for example with his comments about the Democrats being insufficiently supportive of Israel, which is completely wrong, not just an exaggeration but a big lie directionally.
There are issues that right wingers are going to have both a correct and a nicer position that takes in consideration important values and facts disregarded by people who market themselves falsely as prioritizing, objectivity, or virtue. They can be politically incorrect and not nice towards sacred cows even if nicer in general, and step over hysterical demands to censor and gatekeep. To give an example,
The secret of much of politics is that people are on an article of faith acting as anti right wing oppositional force without evaluating things. They start from the conclusion and are unwilling to do things otherwise.
The liberal/"ex" liberal, con inc (though in practice not as ex as it potrays itself) space complaining about the genuine right is incapable and unwilling of recognizing these areas and separating reasonable from unreasonable which also exists. Too much resentment and hostility and seeing right wingers as the opposing tribe. Too much ideological hostility and having themselves unreasonable values they are unwilling to tolerate challenge. Some of them use the pretense of opposing tribalism as an excuse to censor and defame and narrow the intellectual space. Even edgier figures also get things right that liberals oppose. There are a few exceptions that also are atypical, like Michael Tracy and that space do manage to get some important things right on foreign policy of Trump and making critiques that deserve acknowledgement.
For the most part, the more moderate dissident rightists are among the few having some success at separating reasonable from unreasonable, and not purity spiraling. And they are hated too by the Gatekeepers who have failed themselves not to purity spiral. Ironically, not being constrained by the weights of the censorious and authoritarian liberal (including con inc, neocon, etc) gatekeepers is actually a necessity. Even though the bad faith censors pretend their censorship is for the greater good and the epitome of being nice and keeping bad culture warriors down. In actuality it is about stopping and defaming opposition and narrowing intellectual space, condemning what is correct and necessary.
Edited to add: https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1834926318883852543 https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-cat-eaters-of-ohio
Christopher Rufo brings evidence of African migrants eating cats in a neighboring town.
This reinforces the perspective that plenty of people are inclined to jump to the gun to signal how rightists are getting things wrong, because of having a liberal oppositional anti-right wing ideology.
I mean, I'm neither going to pretend to be one of the 'nice' people, nor claiming that the 'nice' people are actually nice -- Romney's my central example in the above post because he's particularly two-faced about it in a single book and a single article, but if you want one of my rants about David French I've got a pretty wide variety to choose from! And there's definitely a tendency for a Russell Conjugation of politeness, demanding carefully-drawn borders of acceptable discourse that one would never be tempted to overstep, while calling people they don't like as acting moronic.
There's some fun debates about whether the belligerent assholes or the 'nice' hegimonizing swarm are more directionally correct, but I'm willing to assume for the sake of this discussion that the assholes are at least a little more honest, or at least make finding the truth more likely in the end. My problem is that even at the most charitable, being just a little more honest than the 'nice' hegimonizing swarm is damning with extremely faint praise.
Like, for your specific example, progressive are and always were also going to quibble about Springfield vs Dayton and Haiti versus Africa, or whether one example is enough, but they can also now deflect because there weren't any dogs involved. There's actually a decent number of social and structural reasons that dogs are particularly unlikely, but even without them there's just the bit where it wasn't even on the twitter radar pre-debate. It's possible Trump had some external information otherwise. There's reason his advocates have mostly dropped it, though.
It's not that this is necessarily 'more' lying. I'd quibble with MacDougald a lot, here: as much as Trump is a bullshitter, you can absolutely find a ton of examples of just straightforward lies from the 'Nice' people, including many in last week's debate. My complaint is that if we belligerent assholes are advertising ourselves as talking about the truth, it'd be nice if belligerent assholes were actually doing that.
((Just as my complaint over at theschism is that it'd be nice if the 'Nice' people weren't talking about how they should metaphorically punch and literally remove from public discussion the people they disagree with.))
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That feels like political jockeying to me. He didn't portray himself that way when he ran for president in 2012, or at least it wasn't a major part of his campaign. That was more like "Romney the capitalist vs Obama the socialist" or something. He's rebranded himself recently to try to make a brand that's distinct from Trump without directly opposing him. But it's all kayfabe- in the end they're not that far apart on actual policy issues.
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I'd certainly consider it one of the best ones. If you're mostly familiar with the material via the movie, I'd recommend remedying that; I'd call it an inferior adaptation all-around, for many reasons. Its mediocrity is perhaps more infuriating than a worse adaptation would have been, as it makes it easier for people to conflate it with its basis. Your Fault in particular might be the song that suffers the most from the adaptation; they made the very strange decision to slow it down, draining an awesome, climactic moment of its energy. It's a patter song, and it benefits greatly from the faster speed it was written for. I think of Your Fault and Last Midnight as two halves of a single moment, almost a single song, the buildup of tension followed by the breaking point.
The PBS American Playhouse recording of the original show is one of the best filmed performances of a stage musical out there. A lot of Sondheim pieces got that treatment, which is a boon for musical theater nerds.
This version?
Yes.
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