John McCain is a small, petty man who takes comfort in other people’s distress. How do I know that? It’s what I oberved during his so-called “Town Hall” at the Rochester, New Hampshire Opera House this week.
How else to assess his reference to his staff as people on “work-release” in response to an avid supporter’s complaint that the preparations for the event had been shoddily handled by the paid staff? Poor staff work and distressed supporters are not usually considered fodder for a joke or a laughing matter.
McCain’s subseqent interaction with a questioner, who definitely wasn’t supportive of his position on Iraq and our continued involvement in a conflict that’s resulted in the deaths of a million civilians, wasn’t much better. While the petite questioner obviously appreciated the opportunity to follow up and express her distress with his non-answer, it was clear from McCain’s interaction with the angry and vociferous crowd that he not only enjoyed her apparent agitation, but was determined to extend it and make her discomfort palpable to the audience. Indeed, instead of responding to the next question by a member of the Veterans of Foreign War’s about what McCain would do to correct the failure to provide New Hampshire veterans with in-state hospital facilities, McCain preferred yet another round of sparring with the plunky lady in the first row and even gave her the last word. Though it really didn’t matter, since he continued to use the exchange to make himself appear responsive to the audience while, in effect, blowing her off. He was toying with her.
It’s been obvious to me for some time that we make a mistake when we assume that the victims of abuse will have sympathy and be more empathetic in their behavior towards others. Indeed, more often than not, victims become victimizers in turn. That, after all, is how the culture of abuse is transmitted from generation to generation. What hadn’t occurred to me is that victims, in addition to being hardened to injury and distress, would come to derive pleasure from the injury and distress of those who are worse off than themselves.
While this tendency to take delight in the greater misfortune of others might account, in the particular case of John McCain, for his supporting the torture of detainees by the military at Guantanamo, I think we should distinguish it from the rather common sensation, often referred to as Schadenfreude, many of us experience when someone “gets his comeuppance,” so to speak, and experiences a misfortune that is judged to be well-deserved, if often a bit late. No, the tortured individuals for whom John McCain apparently can spare no compassion, are entirely (not just technically) innocent victims who haven’t done either John McCain, or anyone else, any harm.
Maybe it’s unfair, but I think it should be pointed out that there wasn’t any question, when he was taken into custody in Vietnam that John McCain was guilty of bombing Vietnamese villages and cities and, very probably, killing many people who hadn’t done him any harm. So, even though he was following orders in dropping his loads of bombs where he’d been told, John McCain was guilty of sowing death and destruction in a foreign land. And he liked it! Why else would he launch into a little jig and sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” from a stage in New Hampshire some forty years later?
Gratuitous violence is what it looks like to me–not unlike the jokes at the expense of his staff that were uncalled for. Perhaps inflicting distress is a style of management which John McCain has come to think will work well for him. What I can’t figure out is why the Republican party thinks this is what the country needs.
Clearly, much of the audience in Rochester was supportive of this strategy and enjoyed the prospect of witnessing the distress of others. I say “prospect” because the trouncing of Barack Obama, as often as it was referred to, is just a promise from which nobody, at least not anybody in that audience, is likely to benefit. The anticipated defeat of Obama is, much like the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, a negative event from which no positive results are expected. Some people, presumably, are going to be comparatively worse off and that’s supposed to be a source of satisfaction to people whose incomes have been reduced, whose individual liberties have been restricted and whose prospects for any improvement under another Republican regime are minimal.
“Life could be worse; be grateful that it’s not.” That’s the message. And, when you come to think of it, it’s an old message that’s worked for conservatives for a long time. “Stop your whining, or I’ll really give you something to cry about.” Now the question is, why would a majority of the American people buy that, again? Why, instead of saying “enough is enough,” do they volunteer to get hit again and again.
I mentioned to a young lady standing in line for the McCain event that the conservatives had managed to substitute voluntary servitude for the involuntary kind and she whole-heartedly agreed. Indeed, just the thought of voluntary servitude cheered her up and made the prospect of going through the metal detector or being wanded entirely pleasurable. Being submissive to personal indignities was just fine with her, because it’s what she had chosen to do.
That throws a new light on Rousseau’s observation that
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
Apparently, that’s because some men (and women) choose to be chained.
