Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A Confederacy of Dunces

If you haven’t read John K. Toole’s novel, for which this post is named, I herby recommend it.  It’s not about the dweebs who now inhabit our state legislature and cabinet positions; rather, it’s a look at some of the sub-cultures which flourished in New Orleans in the 60’s.  I can see Governor Walker as the title character of the book, Ignatius Jacques Reilly, a man who enjoys modern conveniences, but has a middle-ages outlook on life and blames his troubles on some higher power, and claims the goddess of fortune too often gives him a bad spin on her wheel of luck.

I got to thinking about “A Confederacy of Dunces” because of the name of the political dweeb who has introduced a “personhood” proposal as an amendment to our state’s constitution.  It’s the same thing the voters of Mississippi just rejected; a proposal which claims “personhood” begins with a male erection or some such nonsense.  This dweeb’s name is Andre Jacque, and he represents people who live in a gerrymandered district which runs from far southeast suburban Green Bay to Manitowoc.

Andre Jacque would be the sort of typical Cajun name you’d run across in New Orleans.  For those who haven’t had the benefit of living in the Big Easy for a couple years, as I have, the Cajuns (a corruption of the word “Acadian”) trace their origins to the French exiles of Canada.  I’m not going to get into the vast difference between Cajun and Creole, which a lot of Midwesterners think are interchangeable terms.

When dunces like Representative Jacque introduce such backward proposals, the media pounce on them and trumpet them.  Stories like this are like the ignorant utterances of Sarah Palin or Joe the Plumber – fun, because they’re so stupid and uninformed.  The stories get picked up by national media, and my contention is that stuff like the Jacque proposal makes Wisconsin look like some backwater state populated by fundamentalist dunces, and – long story short – it does more harm than good to Wisconsin’s image.

Sort of like the sex education stuff the legislature has been wrangling about lately.  Apparently we need to turn back the calendar to the Nancy Reagan heyday of “just say no”, which began as a mantra against drugs and morphed into a plea against premarital sex.

The more you ridicule absurdly unnecessary stuff like the proposed Jacque constitutional amendment, the harder and louder the push-back from the dunces who think stuff like this is important.  Sort of like Miss Vicki’s radio show:  the shrillness of her rants against the recall apparently increases as a direct function of the number of signatures gathered.

To circle back to the beginning, the title of Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book is taken from a Jonathon Swift quote: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him”.  My adaptation of that quote would be something like “when a true dunce appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the idiots and lunatics will raise their voices in agreement with him”.

6 comments:

  1. So.

    Do you have some sort of rational argument to present on the issue?

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  2. The rational argument begins with the fact that "personhood" opens several troubling cans of worms. It would lead to a blanket ban on abortion in all cases, even to save the life of the mother, thus privileging the fetus over the woman carrying it. It would lead to criminal investigations of miscarriages. It could lead to a ban on chemical birth control. And its effects will fall disproportionately on poor and minority women, who can't afford lawyers to get them off.

    The extremism of such amendments is shown by the fact they have failed to pass in both Colorado (twice) and Mississippi, two states where religious nutbaggery is historically much stronger than it is in Wisconsin.

    A law outlawing corporate personhood, on the other hand, is one I could get behind.

    Back to you, Dad, to explain why I'm completely wrong.

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  3. I have several rational arguments. A zygote may eventually result in one, two or three people. Two zygotes may merge into one person. Before implantation, there is no differentiation between the cells that will give rise to a fetus and those that will give rise to the placenta. Scientifically, a zygote cannot be considered a person. The notion that it already has a human soul is a religious belief, and not one shared by all religions. The State has no business enforcing religious beliefs. Even the Catholic church used to teach that life begins at "the quickening" (when fetal movement can be felt). The "life begins at conception" doctrine came about only after the advent of hormonal birth control, just as some southern U.S. States only added the Confederate battle flag to their State flag after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling. It's a backlash against societal changes that give more freedom to a formerly-oppressed group.

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  4. Thanks to jb and Jill for their lucid amplification of our blogger's comments. And to our resident troll for reinforcing the accuracy of the Jonathan Swift quote.

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  5. OK. From the top:

    It would lead to a blanket ban on abortion in all cases, even to save the life of the mother, thus privileging the fetus over the woman carrying it.

    "...save the life..." If the amendment obviates the principle of double-effect, your concern is valid, indeed. As to 'banning abortion' in OTHER cases, that's the point.

    It would lead to criminal investigations of miscarriages.

    When irrational DA's are elected, anything can happen. It certainly is the case in Dane County.

    It could lead to a ban on chemical birth control.

    Yes, it could, when such BC is abortifacient. That's the point. J&J will just have to invent something else.

    And its effects will fall disproportionately on poor and minority women, who can't afford lawyers to get them off.

    Back to irrational DA's, eh? Don't you trust lawyers? Or just DA's?

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  6. Jill....

    Scientifically, a zygote cannot be considered a person.

    This was never about science--which at one time posited that the Sun revolved around the Earth. It's always been about the definition of human life.

    The notion that it already has a human soul is a religious belief, and not one shared by all religions.

    The principle of "prudence" militates against assuming yes/no answer to 'ensoulment.' While no one can prove "ensoulment" at any stage, no one can DIS-prove it, either. We're now finding that 'brain-dead' is not actually 'brain-dead.'

    the Catholic church used to teach that life begins at "the quickening" (when fetal movement can be felt).

    Umnnnhhh, yah. Some ideas are positively displaced by advances in medicine. So?

    The State has no business enforcing religious beliefs.

    Actually, the State cannot declare one particular religion to be "the religion." And the Catholic Church happens to agree.

    But 'personhood' is not a "religious" concept, is it?

    The "life begins at conception" doctrine came about only after the advent of hormonal birth control

    Sure. So what? Even Marx got the 'action/reaction' of politics correct.

    For clarity: I am not convinced that this amendment is ideal, or necessary.

    But some arguments against it are not well-founded.

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