Was It Staged?

During the President’s State of the Union address he presented a newly enfranchised Iraqi voter and the grieving parents of a killed marine. They were in the box with Laura Bush. When the President introduced them the Iraqi woman hugged the parents, to sustained applause. It was a very touching scene. The discussion started immediately over whether it was staged. Now, it seems base and ignoble to make an accusation like that. We should assume the people making it don’t consider themselves to be so, or at the very least, are too smart to willingly make themselves appear so… so we should wonder why they are saying this. In addition, it seems like a very straightforward, yes/no type question: was it staged? My opinion is that this simple question actually lies on a fault-line that divides two radically different world views. I owe this to C. S. Lewis’ book “The Abolition of Man”.

The facts are so straightforward that even the most die-hard conspiracy enthusiast, of any persuasion, would probably have to grant them. She isn’t an actress- she’s an Iraqi civilian. They aren’t actors- they are grieving parents who could hardly be expected to commercialize or exploit such an awful occurrence. Surely they weren’t requested to hug beforehand.

Ergo, to one mindset, generally belonging to conservatives, it was not staged. Easy question. By definition, it was not staged.

To the other mindset, generally belonging to liberals, given all the facts, it is equally easy to answer, with the opposite answer. Yes, it was staged. By definition, it was staged. How can this be? Well, it’s a world-view thing.

Most any person watching the scene on their television would have had an immediate emotional reaction to it. Before this reaction was filtered by politics, world-weariness, patriotism or anything else, before it was either embraced or rejected, I think the reaction would be, perhaps, veneration. This would be a natural, immediate response to graphic demonstrations of sacrifice, and gratitude for that sacrifice. Now, on the face of it, both of these are very noble, very desirable attributes of our collective humanity: sacrifice, and gratitude. But the divide begins immediately. While the conservative thought would be “that is noble and admirable”, the liberal thought would be more like: “this is causing emotions of veneration and admiration in me”. For people of my generation, I’ve probably already said enough!

The one thing we are inured to is attempts to manipulate our emotions. Not only do we get enough of this from the ad industry, but the post-modern world-view, in fact, divides “emotion” from “reality”. There are no qualitative attributes to actual things. A waterfall isn’t beautiful- it causes sensations of beauty in most people. But in other people it does not. But the reaction is the real thing- the waterfall is oddly disconnected, having a secondary and somewhat cheaper, less immediate reality than our reaction. So people or companies will trot out things that would tend to cause these positive reactions, for the very purpose of causing them. They do this for their own reasons, in pursuit of their own ends. And we get to where we respond this way whether something is presented to us for base reasons, or altruistic reasons, or isn’t in fact presented to us at all, but simply encountered. But the scene at the speech was, in fact, presented to us, and since it was apt to induce emotions in us, the liberal response would be to discard it immediately as an attempted manipulation.

A disapproving watcher would feel that the scene was taking place in order to manipulate his feelings into a desired state. There is some truth to this. Why do you think the President wanted the Iraqi and the parents to be present? He wanted the country to see examples of sacrifice and of gratitude for that sacrifice. To the second mindset, this is ipso facto staged, and wrong, and clumsy. These people were there for the President’s use: staged. It was to churn up sappy feelings in us and change our minds about the war: wrong. We are far to smart to be suckered into something by this display: clumsy.

Imagine, for a moment, that this was a TV show and not reality. No question, I would consider it bad TV. It would be excessively maudlin. But I think we are all in some danger of confusing fiction and reality in cases like this. Most TV would make very bad reality; and this reality in particular would make very bad TV. But it makes very good reality. It was something that really happened, in response to other actual events. People are really voting. People really died to make it happen. A vicious, bloodsucking tyrant is really in the slammer and his pervert sons are six feet under. This is all good, and the scene at the speech was shorthand for it. Liberals would err in rejecting it on the grounds that it was made available for them to see! Their attitude seems to be that a presentation of good things is a base ploy, while presentation of bad things would be cathartic, noble, and facing up to the situation. I think this goes deeper than political persuasion, although there is some of that. I think it has to do with a world view that is basically despairing rather than hopeful. In this view, bad things are “reality”; good things are staged. Bad things cause feelings too, but they are “true” feelings, while good things cause “false” feelings.

Ergo, to that mindset it was staged simply because it occurred in the light of day. That mindset can “see through” that kind of thing.

Here is the problem with that second mindset: it is very good to “see through” things that ought to be “seen through”. But this presupposes something a little deeper that is to be seen. At what point do you stop “seeing through” in order that you can see? When you see through something you make it invisible. You are now at the point where the things that you ought to see are invisible to you. This is a poison of the mind and I don’t know what the antidote is.