More on Group Forgiveness

During World War II, the National Socialists of Germany perpetrated a systematic extermination attempt against the Jewish people of Europe. Throughout much of the twentieth century, South African citizens of European ancestry oppressed, with the writ of law, the black members of their country through the structure of apartheid. When both of these travesties thankfully ended, each left a group of victims and a group of aggressors, whose relationships were understandably unpleasant and complex. Simon Wiesenthal and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, bring unique perspectives to these relationships, and offer their readers important questions about the nature of evil, justice, and forgiveness. One of the issues raised is the idea of group forgiveness, commonly understood to be the phenomenon of a victimized group, in some sort of consensus, forgiving their perpetrators. It is this paper’s argument that this understanding of group forgiveness is flawed, illogical, and impractical; a far better understanding recognizes the forgiveness of a group as a series of individual decisions to forgive rather than an abstract general sense of forgiveness among a group’s members.
In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal describes an incredibly difficult moral dilemma into which he was pushed. As a Jewish prisoner of a concentration camp, Wiesenthal had no choice but to agree to come to a makeshift hospital at the behest of the Nazis. There, he found a mortally wounded German soldier, a member of the Schutzstaffel, who told Wiesenthal the lurid story of a massacre of Jews in which he had taken part. The dying soldier wanted to confess his crimes to a member of the Jewish community, and also to be forgiven. Wiesenthal, confused, angered, and distraught leaves the man in silence, and returns to the camp. The incident haunted him for the rest of his life, and the writing of The Sunflower was his presentation of his dilemma to the world. Other cultural luminaries were asked to respond, and their responses are varied. Like many of Wiesenthal’s Christian responders, I would have told the soldier “I forgive you,” but not without a number of qualifications. Wiesenthal’s hesitation is perfectly legitimate, because what the SS man was asking him to do raised the frustratingly complex specter of “group forgiveness.”
When Wiesenthal returned to the concentration camp, he relayed the story of the SS man to his fellow prisoners. His friend Josek responded to the story by claiming that Wiesenthal was right to be silent: “You would have had no right to [forgive him] in the name of people who had not authorized you to do so. What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget.” Wiesenthal responds by asking “But aren’t we a single community with the same destiny, and one must answer for the other,” (Wiesenthal, 65). This may make a nice sentiment, but it is not true. The fact that Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust while other Jews did not suggests that members of the Jewish community did not share the same destiny. Josek is technically correct; in no way can Wiesenthal claim to forgive the man in the name of those who had died.
Even so, Wiesenthal ought to have forgiven the man because the soldier had, indeed harmed him. The Nazi had not personally committed a harmful action against Wiesenthal. However, the nature of his agency, as a Nazi and a member of the SS, indirectly victimizes all members of the Jewish community. By perpetrating a crime against victims because they belonged to a certain group, the SS man was denying the dignity of that group, and therefore violating the humanity of Wiesenthal himself. While the man was asking for forgiveness for the specific crime, the fact that he asked another Jew for forgiveness is significant. By asking a Jew for this forgiveness, the Nazi showed that he understood that his crime had, in a way, been against the entire Jewish people. It is in this regard that Wiesenthal could have legitimately forgiven the SS man, both for his implicit denial of Wiesenthal’s dignity in the specific act of the massacre and for his long-term violation of Wiesenthal’s rights when he acted in the capacity of a loyal Nazi soldier.
Had Wiesenthal, as a Jew, forgiven the Nazi, this would not be an occurrence of “group forgiveness” for several reasons. First, group forgiveness implies that the entire victimized group (or at least a representative portion, though I contend this later) must forgive their oppressors. Wiesenthal’s telling the man “I forgive you” would not affect the other millions of Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis. Secondly, group forgiveness can also mean the forgiveness of an entire oppressing group. The fact that Wiesenthal was even considering forgiving the man, and not completely ignoring him, was because the Nazi had expressed sincere remorse and repentance. Wiesenthal forgiving that one man would not by any means suggest that he had forgiven all of the members of the schutzstaffel or all Nazis or Germans. It means that a single Jew would have forgiven a single Nazi, in the natural personal and individual nature of the act of forgiveness.
Imagine, for a moment, that Wiesenthal (or any other Holocaust survivor) decided to forgive all the Nazis; no longer would this person harbor negative emotions toward any Nazi in his heart, and he may even make motions toward reconciliation. This is, I believe, as close to “group forgiveness” as is possible in the world, that is, a forgiveness of a guilty group as a whole, by an individual. However, just as Wiesenthal could not forgive the dying soldier on the behalf of those he had murdered, a single Holocaust victim could not forgive all the Nazis for each crime they had committed. He can only justly forgive all the Nazis because the Nazis, by virtue of their decision to be a loyal member of this party, had implicitly denied his human worth and dignity. Besides those crimes committed by specific Germans which had directly harmed him, these are the only offenses that the victim can forgive. To claim otherwise is to ignore the rights of the other victims, and their claims to justice.
Groups like European Jews, “Aryan” Germans and black South Africans are by nature, large and incredibly complex. Each of these groups consists of millions of individual people, each who hold their own beliefs, values, and priorities. In an event such as the Holocaust or apartheid, each member of these groups is involved, whether victimized or oppressing, and whether by direct behavior or guilty passivity, all individuals have a stake in the matter. So in the aftermath of one of these travesties, when is it accurate to say that the victimized group has forgiven their offenders? What does it mean to say this? When one encourages a group to forgive, it is unreasonable to expect that all will do so; considering that many victims of the group may be dead, it may be impossible to do so. All one can do is encourage all members of a group to engage in individual, personal forgiveness of their aggressors. Talk of a group forgiving another has the potential to alienate those victims who do not feel sufficiently satisfied to begin the process of forgiveness, and to pressure individuals into flawed and even dangerous forms of “forgiveness.” For large groups of “aggressor” status, it can be unjust to characterize them as “forgiven,” when not all group members were guilty in the first place. This situation occurs when membership of an aggressor group is one of birth, and not of choice, such as race or ethnicity. Not all “Aryan” Germans actively participated in the Holocaust, and many even worked actively against it. By stating that the German people have been forgiven, without qualification, implies that the German people are all guilty and to blame for the travesties. This is injustice. It ignores those who strove against the injustices, but also abrogates the justice of the truly guilty by grouping them with other less culpable individuals.
There may be rare exceptions to my case, wherein one person can recognize the guilt of a group and ask for forgiveness on the part of the group. This is especially the case when membership in a group is a conscious choice or decision. Membership in a political party and to a faith may fall into this category. For example, throughout its history the Roman Catholic Church, in its institutional leadership and lay members, has fostered anti-Semitic sentiments that in turn allowed such atrocities as the slaughtering of Jews during the Crusades. However, the modern era has greatly freed the Church from such backwards and wrong beliefs, but the leader of the modern Church still felt compelled to apologize for them. Pope John Paul II, though he held none of these poisonous opinions, publicly apologized for them on the behalf of the Church and all of its members. “As bishop of Rome and successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love, and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place,” (John Paul II, 1).
Does this action support belief in the existence of historical group guilt? Only because of Catholic belief in the communion of saints, the unity between the Church Militant and Triumphant, on earth and in heaven, is John Paul justified in his apologizing for beliefs neither he, nor any sizable proportion of his flock hold. Just as it is wrong to expect all whites to feel guilt and require forgiveness when a Klansman assaults a minority, it is dangerous to toss around phrases like “group guilt” and “forgiveness” without recognizing, appropriately, true guilt and responsibility. An entire group ought only to be considered guilty, and therefore requiring forgiveness, if a wrong was committed on its behalf and according to its beliefs, with the acceptance, at least through the knowledgeable passivity, of all its members. Likewise, when a wrong is perpetrated against one person because of their membership in a certain group, all members of that group have been wronged, and its individual members have the ability (and responsibility) to forgive. “Group forgiveness,” as it is commonly understood (an understanding inaccurate to this author) is really only total and complete when every member of the victimized group offers accepted forgiveness to every perpetrator; sheer size of groups renders this nearly impossible, while the fact that many victims are dead makes it completely impossible.
I wish here to extend my criticism of the ideal of group forgiveness by exploring its praxis in one of its most visible practical applications: South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was the chairperson of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, defends forgiveness, and specifically political “group” forgiveness, as influenced by his overt Christian religion in his book No Future Without Forgiveness. The Commission, under the direction of Tutu, heard the public confessions of those individuals who had committed politically motivated crimes under the structure of the racist apartheid system. Those who confessed, and proved the political motivations of their crimes, were given legal amnesty. Repentance was not a necessary aspect of this process, which should alert one to the fact that forgiveness may not really be found widely in this system: “For if the applicant was effusive in his protestations in being sorry… he would have been condemned for being totally insincere… If, on the other hand, he was somewhat abrupt and merely formal, he would have been accused of being… not really repentant,” (Tutu, 50). Where political “forgiveness” is concerned, Tutu states rightly that it is impossible to expect logistically all perpetrators to be repentant. When an applicant actually receives amnesty, it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not his individual victims forgive him. To say that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fostered widespread forgiveness on the part of the South African community is simply inaccurate, and without basis in the facts (See Chapman’s statistics below).
A more general idea of truth commissions may be helpful in understanding this topic. Audrey Chapman describes truth commissions as “temporary bodies mandated by governments or international agencies to investigate and make findings about acts and patterns of violence and gross human rights violations that took place during a specified period of time,” (Chapman, 257). Truth commissions are, for areas and nations that have been torn by oppression, actually useful and productive, if simply for logistical reasons. Tutu describes them as a “third way” between Nuremburg trials and blanket amnesty. To be sure, when an event with the scope and scale as large as apartheid takes place, to criminally prosecute each offender is unreasonable and counterproductive. Chapman cites the figure that fewer than 6,500 of 90,000 cases brought to trial against Nazis resulted in an actual conviction, (Chapman, 258). At the same time, it is a great injustice to simply grant total amnesty to offenders. For that reason, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked on a certain level: it provided enough amnesty to allow for society to continue to function with its members, but did not repress or ignore the events of the past. The truth aspect of its mission was carried out well; reconciliation proves to be a more elusive target.
Tutu views the Commission as a great step in forgiveness politics, recounting emotional stories of victims forgiving their perpetrators who confessed in the Commission. While this may very well be true, and may have led to further reconciliation among the parties, it by no means proves the validity of the “group forgiveness” argument. Each of these examples is an individual account of forgiveness; this is of course natural, as forgiveness is a personal phenomenon. Even if one were to accept some sort of proportional figure as representative of a proportion of a population engaging in group forgiveness, South Africa may not at all be a good example. Considering that 38 percent of the victims supported criminal prosecutions over the commission’s amnesty, it is difficult to paint a picture of a group that has completely forgiven their aggressors.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty and relative lack of support for victims left a sour taste in the mouths of many South Africans (Chapman, 269). Tutu’s overwhelming religious sentiments may have pressured victims into feeling the need to forgive instead of voicing legitimate anger or rage at the outrages of the apartheid system. Neither of these factors helps to promote real forgiveness among the individual victims and their offenders. The forum itself, while useful for bringing truth to light and at least shaming offenders, fails when it attempts to foster group forgiveness as group forgiveness is not an actual phenomenon; it is an oversimplification of a series of complex individual decisions, among a group’s members, to forgive those who have personally victimized them. “Public hearings of the type the TRC organized do not offer an appropriate setting for effecting deep and genuine forgiveness between victims and perpetrators,” (Chapman 270).
Theologian Miroslav Volf suggests that forgiveness is not complete unless entered into by both victim and perpetrator. A victim can offer forgiveness, as God does to each sinner, but the forgiveness only becomes complete when the offender accepts the forgiveness through some form of repentance. Likewise, simply because some victimized South Africans chose to forgive their offenders does not necessarily mean that group forgiveness took place. One of the greatest disappointments out of the many that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fostered was the fact that white South Africans were largely unresponsive toward its goals. Even after the work of the commission was presented to the country, only 18.9 percent of white South Africans acknowledged themselves as “beneficiaries of the apartheid order,” (Chapman, 274). The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as far as forgiveness is concerned, is found wanting.
Ervin Staub and Laurie Ann Pearlman, in a discussion of the Rwandan genocide, ask important questions about the nature of group forgiveness. “We have to ask, forgive whom? What of different kinds of perpetrators: the planners, those who killed, others who in some way assisted in or benefited from the killings? What of members of the perpetrator group who have not perpetrated violence but are implicated by membership… and many of them by their passivity?” (Staub and Pearlman, 213). My answer is that all of these should be forgiven by victims, each in reference of their personal guilt to the individual victim. The forgiveness that may occur in such a situation is an amalgamation of individual decisions and actions, in reference to other individual perpetrators, even if they remain faceless, nameless, and anonymous.
Volf finds exploration of the end times to be pertinent to discussions of how humans live now, including how we forgive. “If the world to come is to be a world of love then the eschatological transition from the present world… includes… the final social reconciliation,” (Volf, 94). For Volf, perpetrators’ salvations are found in their victims’ mercy, and these acts of forgiveness, rather than being general or abstract, are intensely personal. However, these personal acts of forgiveness result in what “group forgiveness” portends to create: a “final social reconciliation,” the total and complete restoration of justice and mercy that will occur, by Christ, at the end of the world, the eschaton.
As these examples and explorations show, it is wrong to reduce the complex and sophisticated individual decisions to forgive in a group to some sort of general forgiveness zeitgeist. A victim of group oppression can forgive those who personally harmed him, as well as their remote superiors, and those people who were complicit by passivity. Each of these harmed him personally, whether by an actual harmful action or their lack of respect for the victim’s dignity, and ought to repent and be forgiven. But lumping them together into a group of perpetrators, and putting all of the members of an oppressed group into one general victim does injustice to the truth: while an overarching system of oppression may have existed that fostered these actions, the actual harm of oppression takes place in the brutal and intensely personal violations of human dignity that occur and require forgiveness. To pretend otherwise is almost unforgivable.


Bibliography
1. Wiesthenal, Simon. The Sunflower. 1997, 1998. Shocken Books: New York.
2. Tutu, Desmond. No Future Without Forgiveness. 1999. Image Doubleday: New York.
3. Pope John Paul II. “Speech at Yad Vashem.” 3/23/2000, accessed 3/13/2007. < http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/data_pope/speech.html”
4. Chapman, Audrey. “Truth Commissions as Instruments of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 2001. Templeton Foundation Press: Philadelphia.
5. Staub, Ervin, and Pearlman, Laurie Anne. “Healing, Reconciliation, and Forgiving after Genocide and Other Collective Violence.” Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 2001. Templeton Foundation Press: Philadelphia.
6. Volf, Miroslav. “The Final Reconciliation: Reflections on a Social Dimension of the Eschatological,” Modern Theology 16 (2000).

Purgatorio Subversions

When Dante, in his Purgatorio, reaches the summit of the mountain of purgatory, he finds the biblical Garden of Eden itself, replete with saintly creatures and wondrous natural beauty. He also encounters his late love Beatrice, in a heavenly procession. Dante has set up what could be a perfect example of the meeting of the locus amoenis and fin amour traditions in medieval literature, a story of the hero finding his romantic interest in a beautiful garden. Instead, Dante subverts both genres; the locus amoenis is not the usual imitation of the Garden of Eden, but the Garden of Eden itself, and Beatrice proves not to be a fawning young maid, but a tough-talking saint who chastises her knight. By uniquely approaching these literary tropes, Dante is able not only to create a compelling novel situation, but also to make grand theological claims. The reader is to learn through these subversions that the transitory affections of mortal life are far inferior to the eternal happiness to be enjoyed by living with right priorities.

In most medieval romances, the locus amoenis is a resplendent garden suggestive of earthly Paradise, wherein the romance between a knight and his lady grows and is explored. As stated earlier, Dante does these earlier poets one better: his locus amoenis is the original Garden of Eden. Not only is this garden as naturally beautiful as any imagined locus amoenus, its beauty is enhanced by its residents, who are holy beings in a constant state of praise for God and other saints. The wonder of God’s creation is augmented by a glorious procession, which on earth, could only be the result of human creativity and ritual (both inspired by God). Dante could have made the top of purgatory into anything he desired, but he chose a specific garden. Even if one was to assume that a garden is the suitable choice to top of purgatory, Dante’s choice of Eden itself is significant. There is a Platonic sense of perfection in Dante’s Eden, where other loci amoenis are only flawed imitations of the form itself. It is not only Eden but also its residents who are important, and the superiority of this garden over other literary brethren ought to suggest that what the hero will find therein is far superior to the contents of other loci amoenis. The divine love of expressed by the saints, in this case Beatrice, is (quite literally, as Eden is at the top of a mountain) far above the temporal romantic affections indulged in by poets.

It is here in Eden that Dante finds his long-lost love Beatrice, of whom the reader has heard much about throughout both Purgatorio and the Inferno. Dante is awestruck by Beatrice’s glorious appearance, amidst angelic host and flying lilies. “I know the signs of the ancient flame,” (XXX.48) he speaks to a missing Virgil, who has begun his return to limbo, whose absence causes Dante to weep. In a traditional fin amour, the lady would perhaps attempt to comfort her distraught knight at the loss of a friend and companion. Not so with Beatrice. Her first words to Dante are wrenchingly brusque: “Dante, because Virgil has departed,/ do not weep, do not weep yet-/ there is another sword to make you weep,” (XXX.55-57), a version of the vaunted parental warning “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

After this initial shock of coldness, Dante continues to turn the fin amour tradition on its head. The ‘amour’ of fin amour was romantic in nature, and so far in the Comedy we have understood Dante’s love for Beatrice to be romantic itself. However, when Dante is finally brought face-to-face with Beatrice, his reaction is that of a child facing a scolding mother. Indeed, Dante describes his feelings as such, narrating “as a mother may seem overbearing to her child,/ so she seemed to me, for the taste/ of such stern pity is a bitter taste,” (XXX.79-81). In a usual fin amour, the male character is often a valiant knight, who performs some heroic service for the common good or the sake of his lady. While Dante has performed a rather epic feat, descending into hell, scaling the legs of Satan and climbing up Purgatory to Eden, at this point in the tale he is anything but valiant. “I lowered my eyes to the clear water./ But when I saw myself reflected, I drew them back/ toward the grass, such shamed weighed on my brow,” (XXX..76-78). After another accusatory salvo, Dante breaks down and cries. Dante’s timidity is caused not only by fear but also abiding love for Beatrice. Likewise, Beatrice’s stern accusations come not from malice but from her own love of Dante. In Purgatorio XXXI, the reader begins to see the purpose of these harsh words.

This chapter of the Comedy is set up according to Dante’s understanding of the structure of the sacrament of confession; here, Beatrice acts as a confessor to Dante’s penitent. One should be struck by the bizarre situation in which Dante has placed his characters. Before this, Dante has come to this ultimate locus amoenis, and the reader expects him to have an appropriately touching reunion with his lost love. Instead, his love has turned out to be rather brutal in her addressing of Dante, and instead of a romantic embrace, they are now bound together in a sort of paradisiacal sacrament of penance. This contrast should not only be jarring in a literary sense; Dante wants his readers to take something theologically from this encounter. The contentment of earthly affections breeds its own evils, which Dante must overcome if he is going to approach heaven. At Beatrice’s invitation, he confesses, “Things set in front of me,/ with their false delights, turned back my steps/ the moment that Your countenance was hidden,” (XXXI.34-36). Dante’s confession is accepted, and Beatrice finally turns a loving smiled toward him. Such a smile is worth all of his emotional trials: “O splendor of eternal living light… Heaven with its harmonies reflected in you,/ when in the wide air you unveiled yourself,” (XXXI.139-145).

In the end, then, Dante’s encounter with Beatrice ends as any worthwhile fin amour should; the blessed lady looks with great favor upon her gentleman. Even so, this look, as made ineffably beautiful by divine love, is vastly superior to any other that had been expressed. And one ought to remember that though this happy ending was achieved, it was preceded by an unusual sacramental moment, and it is indeed no true ending at all. Dante and Beatrice are not going to live together happily ever after; at the end of this trip, Beatrice will return to Heaven and Dante to earth. The very point and goal of this reunion is not the continuation of romance but the salvation of Dante’s soul. This is why their meeting is so oddly frank, why it occurred in earthly Paradise, and why it even occurred at all.

All of these literary subversions truly make for a compellingly unique story, and stand strong on their own legs of artistic merit. But Dante’s vision was not meant only to entertain but to speak something truly meaningful about the nature of love. His use of the traditions of fin amour and locus amoenus, long associated with love, turns long-accepted understandings of romance into a theological statement. The subversion of these tropes serves to highlight the need of right priorities: loving God needs to come before loving all other things, even a person so wondrously good and beautiful as Beatrice. By such ordering, coupled with the realization of sin and the need of repentance, one can approach the salvation offered by God. If Dante must overturn long-standing literary traditions to speak to this effect, so be it. Conventions, quite literally, be damned.

Framing the Blogosphere: Perspectives on the Left-Right Divide

Over the past half-decade, blogging has exploded as a modern communication medium. The act of publishing work on the internet has become incredibly popular, and more blogs on vastly varied subjects spring up each day. Political blogging became especially prevalent after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001. One of the phenomena that resulted from this astronomical increase in political blogging was the formation of a left-right divide in the blogosphere; as the blogosphere grew, political blogs on each side of the debate began to create circles of like-minded contributors. “The blogosphere is a highly fragmented place where people naturally and often aggressively divide into ideological camps,” (Kerbel, Bloom, 22). The result was a blogosphere sharply divided by ideology, wherein, due to a number of factors, blogs tended to interact almost exclusively with other politically sympathetic blogs, rarely linking to or citing blogs of opposing viewpoints.

The purpose of this paper is not so much to explore each of the multiple reasons for this divide as to focus on the perceptions bloggers hold of their own work and others’ through the language of frame. A study of postings on blogs on each side of the political debate reveals that each blogger is active in framing; that is, “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described,” (Entman, 52). In a great number of instances, political blogs specialize and cover one or several specific topics; as they report and analyze information about each topic, a frame becomes apparent. Naturally, blogs that tend to have a general political perspective, while not wholly subscribing to all of their compatriots’ opinions, share similar frames that perpetuate themselves through linking and idea-sharing among the bloggers. In other words, for many of these blogs a certain political ideology invariably becomes its primary framework, “[a frame] that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful,” (Goffman, 21). Thus, as each side of the blogosphere continues to communicate information and ideas amongst their fellow frame-sharers, the divide between left and right becomes more apparent. For the purposes of studying this and other phenomena, this paper will cite two popular political blogs as examples: Daily Kos on the left side of the blogosphere, and Little Green Footballs on the right.

Blogs are revolutionary in their treatment of news communication. Individuals, who have in common perhaps only an internet connection, cite, produce, comment on, and share information in a decentralized and unstructured fashion. This is in stark contrast to traditional media forms, as described by Tuchman in a 1978 work: “news is located, gathered, and distributed by professionals working in organizations. Thus it is inevitably a product of newsworkers drawing upon institutional processes and conforming to institutional practices,” (Tuchman, 4). Nothing could be further from the reality of blogging, which eschews “conforming to institutional practices.” This revolutionary form of communication “increases civic participation, mobilization, and engagement,” (Kerbel, Bloom, 5). It is the very freedom from typical media structures that allows for this novel dynamism. An important aspect of these traditional media structures was a supposed adherence to objectivity and balance, which ensured, if in a flawed manner, that the left and right were engaged in some form of dialogue. The freedom of blogs means that they are not in any way obligated to engage in such balance; their respective frames are shared by other like-minded individuals, and for reasons explained below, a divide between left and right exists that was not as apparent in the old media styles.

In a phone interview with the author, blogger Bill Whittle illustrated effects of the left-right blogosphere divide. Whittle is a television editor and author, whose popular blog Eject! Eject! Eject! consists of lengthy essays on contemporary issues and ideals concerning Americans, and happens to be on Little Green Football’s blog roll (a list of links to other blogs the blogger maintains on his or her website). When asked to provide an overarching theme, which could be reasonably understood as frame, Whittle described Eject! Eject! Eject! as a blog that “provides ammunition to those who believe that America is a good and decent place.” As such, Whittle’s blog postings are original pieces of thought that defend traditionally-held views and ideals about the goodness, generosity, and decency of the average American citizen. Responses to his blog handily illustrate the separation of the left and right blogospheres. Whittle’s work is regularly praised by other bloggers and commentators, including Little Green Footballs founder Charles Johnson. When asked what sort of response his work garnered from liberal bloggers, Whittle responded that there was very little; what several examples do exist are insubstantial and offensively crude. Whittle’s work is simply not widely read on the left blogosphere, but it is enthusiastically consumed on the right, by those who share Whittle’s ideological frame of America.

As referenced above, Charles Johnson is the proprietor and main contributor of the weblog Little Green Footballs. Founding the site in early 2001, the jazz musician and web designer began to write about his hobbies, such as bicycling, and described his political tendencies as “center-left,” (Ronen, 1). However, the events of September 11^th of that year turned Johnson into something of a hawk, and his blog began to take on a more political and conservative tone. If the blogosphere can be divided, as it has been suggested, into groups of “thinkers” and “linkers,” (Whittle) then Johnson is most certainly a member of the latter. A thinker is a blogger whose content is, for the most part, original thoughts and opinions published for public consumption; Bill Whittle is an excellent example. A linker tends to blog less substantial, original work, preferring to link and cite from other sources, be they bloggers or members of the traditional news media. For the purposes of this discussion, Johnson’s tendency to blog as a linker is extremely helpful, for while it may be difficult to analyze the frame of a prolific writer whose work is entirely original (and therefore, whose influences may be less than obvious), Little Green Footballs’ content is almost entirely links to other blog posts and news stories. By observing what stories Little Green Footballs posts, and which stories are ignored, one can come more easily to a conclusion about the blog’s frame.

A visit to the Little Green Footballs weblog will quickly reveal a website dedicated to covering events concerning several current global issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America’s involvement in Iraq, especially as a part of the global war on terror, and the encroachment of Islam, Islamic terrorism, and Islamic values on traditional western civilization (it is difficult to list these issues without engaging in framing oneself). For instance, a sample of one day’s blog titles might read “Five Sentenced in Islamic Bombing Plot,” “Gadafi’s Raving Takes a Darker Turn,” “Another British Muslim Secretly Jailed in Airline Plot,” and “Five UK Muslims Convicted in Bomb Plot,” (all from Little Green Footballs entries on 4/30/07). It is common, as can be seen above, that a single day’s entries might focus heavily on a particular issue or series of related issues; no one day is usually typical or inclusive of all topics. While the focus of the blog may be immediately apparent, its respective frame or frames may take more time to explore, though they are by no means subtle or difficult to find. Unlike traditional media sources, bloggers such as Johnson make no pretensions about balance or objectivity; the nature of the political blog is openly partisan and its operator rarely suggests that he or she is striving for objectivity. That being said, bloggers often reject labeling, which is in its own way an immediate framing of a blog’s identity and, at times, a judgment of its content.

Johnson himself rejects labels such as “right-wing” for his blog. He cites the Little Green Footballs commenter (as opposed to contributor, a distinction which will be addressed below) “Bleeding heart conservative” as accurately assessing the purpose or ethos of the blog: “Little Green Footballs is not a right wing weblog. Taxes, social programs, moral behavior, tradition, these topics generate widely disparate views among its readership. Instead it proposes a clear and practical idea to which many with a practical mindset ascribe,” (Comments, Little Green Footballs 1) the said “clear and practical idea” being a tough approach to Islamic extremism. A thorough and regular reading of the Little Green Footballs blog will reveal a number of frames; namely, that Israel is almost invariably justified in its behavior toward the Palestinian territories, whose residents as sympathetic to terrorist methods of engagement do not deserve statehood, that the United States is justified in entering the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in staying in those nations, and that Islam, in almost all of its forms, is hostile to the western tradition of democracy and freedom.

These frames are apparent in the news stories that Johnson chooses to put up for discussion on Little Green Footballs. The very recent stories from April 30^th present readers with a world where Islamic terrorism is a real, grave, and constant threat. Besides textual news stories, Johnson often posts brief video clips accompanied by translated captions provided by the Middle Eastern interest group MEMRI. As far as Johnson’s frame on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes, his video post with the title “Palestinian Sheikh Calls on Allah to Kill Every Single Israeli and American” gives the viewer an appropriate idea. The conflict in Iraq, Johnson feels, is justified by its supposed detrimental effects on terrorist networks. The recent announcement of the capture of a terror leader in Iraq leads Little Green Footballs recent posts on Iraq: “Big Fish Was 7/7 Mastermind,” in reference to the attacks on the British mass transit system. Accompanying each post’s link and short preview of contents, Johnson usually provides a brief reference or tidbit about the linked article. His frames cannot be discerned from these small writings alone, but rather it is the stories he chooses to highlight that determine them. It is also those stories he does not post that help to identify his frames. For instance, there is conspicuously little reporting on the negative events unfolding in Iraq, which would suggest that Johnson wishes his readers to focus on other stories that seem to support the United States’ invasion and occupation of that country.

By consistently reporting news stories of the same tenor, Little Green Footballs presents a frame for its readers. “The text [in this case, the choice of stories] contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain key-words, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of fact or judgments,” (Entman, 52). As the readers, who often consist of other bloggers and blog commentators, continue to read these same presented stories, they begin to accept the stories’ frames, and recreate them in their own environments. Such is the self-perpetuating nature of blog frames.

Such failures to highlight negative stories that may lessen the validity of Johnson’s frames are often pointed to by his critics. Indeed, if one does not wish to send valuable traffic to an opposing website, it is much better to attack them for the lack of an addressed subject than to link to an offensive one. The bloggers of Daily Kos are among the web’s most common and intense detractors of Little Green Footballs, and it is not at all uncommon to see daily negative references on one blog about the other. Daily Kos was founded by Markos Moulitsas in May of 2002, or when, as he states, “in those dark days when an oppressive and war-crazed administration suppressed all dissent as unpatriotic and treasonous,” (Moulitsas, Daily Kos). Daily Kos also is a forum not only for Moulitsas and his commentators, but also a number of other bloggers who are hosted on the website. This results in a different dynamic with more varied frames than a blog like Little Green Footballs. Even so, it too has shared general content focus and frames easy to identify upon inspection.

Daily Kos blog posts tend to focus on domestic and international policy issues, often supporting those measures suggested by others on the left, and attacking the policies of conservatives, especially members of the Bush administration. A sampling of post titles from April 30^th, 2007, would read “Broder: Iraq War is Lost,” “Kurtz lets one slip,” and “Day 1460: Bush says troops stay in Iraq indefinitely.” The posting format on Daily Kos is relatively similar to that of Little Green Footballs, relying heavily on links to other stories or opinion. There is, generally, slightly more original commentary on Daily Kos than appears at Little Green Footballs. No matter the slightly differing formats, the frame-perpetuation of Little Green Footballs acts in the same manner at Daily Kos. Left-leaning bloggers regularly read Daily Kos postings and travel to other lefty blogs to which Kos links. As a result, the liberal political frame that selects which news stories are posted on Daily Kos become ingrained further upon the left blogosphere, and the similar effect on the right blogosphere combine to dig ever deeper the online political rift, ensuring that little substantial dialogue will occur between either side.

While it is not clear that the internet is an appropriate forum for substantial political dialogue between opposing camps, it is clear that the left-right dialogue that does occur is usually aggressively negative and pejorative. The terms “moonbat” and “idiotarian” in reference to far left individuals were popularized on Little Green Footballs, while common criticisms of Johnson and his site refer to racism and hate. It is important here to make a distinction between bloggers and their commentators. As stated earlier, many blogs (including Daily Kos and Little Green Footballs) offer opportunities for regular web denizens to comment upon posted subject matter, though it is sometimes restricted to registered members. At any rate, much of the derogatory dialogue found in blogs finds its source in the commentators, and not the bloggers themselves. When Little Green Footballs is categorized as a hate site, quotes frequently used to support this theory almost invariably come from the comments section of the blog, which are often taken out of context. Little Green Footballs, it must be said, often cites the more extreme statements of Daily Kos commentators, as well as members of the internet forum Democratic Underground.

To accuse a blog or, more specifically, their bloggers of “hate” is irresponsible if one’s evidence comes only from blog commentators. While a blogger ought to have some level of appropriate control over what other publish on his or her blog, and regular blog commentators are inseparable from the overall identity of the blog, it is logistically ludicrous to suggest that bloggers must monitor and censor each and every commentator for offensive material. Johnson and other bloggers use software that attempts to identify certain slurs in postings, and forbid the posting to occur. Johnson himself will often read through comment threads and personally edit offensive messages, although as one person his abilities are limited.

Even were blogs such as Little Green Footballs to remove comment abilities, they would probably still be criticized and attacked. This is not because the actual content of blogs would change, but because the frames of a right or left wing blogger are seen as offensive intellectually and otherwise to those who disagree with them. This is the core conflict that occurs when, as in more mainstream political debates, ad hominem attacks trump content debates. Although Johnson only links to other news stories and offers limited commentary, he is derided as a racist by many (including the specialized blog LGF Watch, which exists solely to criticize Little Green Footballs). It is the blog’s frame, that Islam poses a threat to western society, that is found so offensive as to be categorically described as hateful. In response, one might suggest that the frame of little Islamic terrorist threat existing in the world so wrong as to be described as “idiotic,” which, by bloggers on the right wing, it often is. As it stands, there is little original content on Little Green Footballs, written by Johnson that could reasonably be accused of espousing racist themes. Such accusations, say sympathetic bloggers like Whittle, are slanderous.

Opposing frames naturally divide any political debate; it is the nature of internet communication as non-physical and remote that allows for a deliberate “snubbing” and lack of discourse between argumentative parties. If one has the opportunity to avoid inevitably nasty exchanges, why bother engaging them? The blogosphere’s place in the internet ensures that, until some collective action is taken, the relative independence and tribalism of left and right blogging will remain intact. Blogs’ frames, which act as filters for what content is posted, will continue to perpetuate themselves as right to their fans and offensive to their detractors. It is not this author’s opinion that this divide proves that blogs have a negative effect on this country’s political process. On the contrary, blogs by their nature encourage active participation in political life and activity; Little Green Footballs readers often post about engagements with the left in the “real world” that were inspired by content found on the internet. Daily Kos has inspired its readers to support and promote the campaigns of a number of Democratic politicians in different elections, with admittedly mixed results.

It must be remembered that, in the scheme of communication, blogs are an incredibly young innovation. It is difficult to accurately propose just what the blogosphere will look in ten years, or further. Even so, it seems a remote possibility that the left-right blogosphere rift will be bridged any time soon. Blog frames, as self-perpetuating, are simply unlikely to spontaneously bridge that gap; perhaps, it would even be unnatural to the medium. However, the internet has a habit of creating the most unlikely of phenomena; in an age of such technology, what is unexpected is often the next big thing.

Bibliograohy

Ronen, Gil. “At Israel’s Right.” Aritz Sheva. May 11, 2004.

<http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/62000>

Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. 1974. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.

Tuchman, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. 1978. The Free Press: New York.

Kerbel and Bloom. “Blog for American and Civic Involvement.” 2005. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.

Entman, Robert. “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.” 1993, Journal of Communication, Autumn.

Johnson, Charles. Content of Little Green Footballs weblog. April 30, 2007. <http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com>

Various authors. Content of Daily Kos weblog, April 30, 2007.

<http://www.dailykos.com>

Moulitsas, Markos. “About Daily Kos.”

<http://www.dailykos.com/special/about2>

“Bleeing heart conservative.” Little Green Footballs blog comment, May 8, 2003.

< http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=6552#c0026>

Whittle, Bill. Eject! Eject! Eject!

<http://www.ejectejecteject.com>

Whittle, Bill. Telephone interview. April 26, 2007.

A nice long break

I apologize for the long break in postings; finals season has brought, however, a whole harvest of new papers for posting. Enjoy.

Or, life in the woods

I am spending Easter with a friend's family in Massachusetts, whom I thank greatly for their hospitality. This morning, my friend and I performed a unique kind of Good Friday penance. After waking around 6:30 and going out into the 25 degree weather, we walked the circumference of Walden Pond before standing on the shore in our boxers, and then diving into the water.

It was cold. Very, very cold.

We thought Thoreau might have enjoyed that sort of thing.

Have a holy Good Friday.

We happy few, we band of brothers

Last friday, the Villanova Humanities Department hosted a lecture entitled "Faith Seeking Beauty," delivered by the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia.

A practicing Catholic and prominent poet, Gioia spoke of the disparity between the size of the American Catholic community and its near nonexistent presence in the arts. Citing the Church's long history of commissioning and inspiring art, and even more recent history such as early and mid-twentieth century Catholic authors, Chairman Gioia bemoand today's lack of practicing, artistic Catholics. His points are valid, and one need only look at much modern art, visual, literature, film, etc. to see a soullessness that may very well be the result of artists without firm spiritual foundation.

The art community, though perhaps suspicious of orthodox organized faith, could be much improved by the presence of visible Catholic members. So, all of you talented Catholics, get out there and create. Think of it as a vocation.

Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions.

This is a brief summary of my faith in Christ written as the introduction to a brief paper on the subject for my theology class.

It is my opinion that Jesus Christ is the unique mediator of salvation. My belief in the necessity of salvation for humanity stems from reason and experience; the presence of undeniable evil in the world rationally predicates a need for salvation from said evil. That God exists and that he alone holds the means to our salvation I hold in faith, supplemented by reason such as Aquinas’ and Anselm’s proofs. The one system of belief that shares such an opinion about the need for salvation from evil and sin is Christianity, among whose central tenants is the confession that Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, died for humanity’s sins and rose, redeeming us before our Father. One need not believe or know of Christ explicitly to attain the salvation he achieved, as the Gospels which give us our knowledge of Jesus suggest the universality of his sacrifice. A sincere discerning and doing of the good, which will inevitably be acting in love, is the key to meriting the salvation uniquely mediated by Christ.