Silence of the hams

[digitaldiscipline]

I don't usually talk back to NPR, but when I do, I prefer not to be saying, "Wow, you people are fucking insane."

Quoting Rude Pundit for a sec here:

Yeah, it'd be fine to write about what backwards ass yahoos the Republicans are in Mississippi and Alabama, since a majority either believe Barack Obama is a Muslim or don't know and 2/3 don't believe in evolution, but why? Is it a surprise? Is there a spin to put on it other than "Goddamn, them's some backwards ass motherfuckers"?

Kudos to NPR for at least pointing out the, well... lack of intellectual awareness... these folks espoused. But, Jesus Christ, the everyday people they interviewed terrify me (not merely because of their divoce from reality and adamant desire to see their Invisible Friend run everyone's lives in this country) but because these are the folks who are motivated to vote.

Why am I always so disappointed whenever people live down to the unflattering stereotypes about them?

Comments

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The problem with stereotypes is that they're real. They're not made up out of whole cloth. They're true often enough for even those that are unfamiliar with the group or culture can recognize that the idea is credible. The Big Lie rests on a foundation of Real.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I just boggle, occasionally, that people who bristle at being stereotyped in such a negative manner still espouse everything they're being accused of. Either it's an ingrained and unexamined part of their personality, a complete lack of self-awareness, or just who they genuinely want to be...

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

I think they want the things that they are to be good things, instead of bad ones. "Repressive" becomes "moral", "greedy" becomes "frugal", "uneducated" becomes somehow "egalitarian".

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

good and bad, stereo-typicals generally resolve all to often to actuals. but we knew that.

i guess calling them stereo-types, or tropes is a meta-defense to distance themselves?

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