Funferal

Us and them

Salon has an interesting article on Todd Gitlin, focusing on his new book “Letters to a Young Activist.” It’s in the same Art of Mentoring series as Hitchens’s Letters to a Young Contrarian – and I find the contrast in the titles/approaches chosen interesting.
Gitlin is right to stress that refusing to understand why a person might vote for Bush, other than out of stupidity or malice, is a major failing. It’s elitist, and ultimately creates a wall between ‘us’ – pure and on the outside – and ‘them’ – the masses, whose numbers can be ignored because the error of their choice is obvious [to those who did not make that choice].
Irish politics can face a similar problem, where people cannot understand how people vote for Fianna Fáil. While I face a similar difficulty, I realise that we cannot reduce FF voters to a caricature – stupid, ignorant of current affairs, greedy – as this approach leaves us with few ideas as to how we can attract those people to move to vote for, for example, Labour.