Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Today in slurs

by Aaron Wherry on Monday, June 1, 2009 1:38pm - 47 Comments

Why the Conservative campaign against Michael Ignatieff is vaguely Stalinist.

Tags: attack ads, Michael Ignatieff, stalin

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http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Fortunately I think we can take it for granted that the Conservatives are entirely ignorant of this bit of historical context, as of so many others.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I take it for granted that Ms. Gagnon and Ms. Delacourt are also entirely ignorant of historical context, or else they would not be drawing this kind of false parallel.
http://intensedebate.com/people/robert_mccl6309 Robert McClelland

That may very well be the case, but it's interesting that they seem to be ignorant of the historical context of many words and phrases. That doesn't bode well when you're talking about a profession where image is everything.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Mulletaur! Susan Delacourt stole your insane idea!

Mulletaur

Thieves. Huh.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Historically speaking, it is of course not a minor point. While anti-semitism has deep roots in European consciousness, going back to the Dark Ages, its basis was always the idea that Jews were foreigners. In the era of 19th C nationalism, this was reinterpreted to mean that, because Jews were not members of a particular nation-state club, their "foreignness" (which was, of course, state-imposed and quickly discarded with emancipation) must be pernicious to the interests of any particular nationalism; "internationalism" being the opposite of narrow nationalism. In a sense, the anti-semites were right: both passively (because of their being rejected by nationalist bigotry) and actively (because they were, generally speaking, more intellectual and reasonable), the Jews did as much as any other nation (and far more per capita) to foster the Enlightenment which the anti-semites wanted to overthrow. Anyway, since those days "cosmopolitan" (= κοσμοπολίτης, "citizen of the world [cosmos]," a term first used by Socrates) has been a proud badge for everyone who stands in solidarity both with the Jews and with the Enlightenment they helped so much to foster and which their enemies so badly wanted to destroy. Historically speaking, I envy Ignatieff for being attacked as a κοσμοπολίτης.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

So what word should the Tories have used in that ad, instead of "cosmopolitan"?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

I don't think it was appropriate for them to attack Ignatieff for having an international point of view (which is what "cosmopolitan" and all accurate synonyms mean). There is nothing incompatible as between being Canadian and having an international point of view. If the issue is that he may have at one point abandoned his loyalty to Canada, they should attack him as being more Brit or American than Canadian.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

Or if, rather, the issue was that he had ceased to have any meaningful connection with Canada, regardless of whether his loyalty had landed with some other nation, they could attack him on that basis too. Not to give our Little Shop friends any ideas, but the American blogosphere had some fun with "things that weren't invented yet when John McCain was born," and the Tories could do something like that. "1974: The Summit Series – Iggy was in [insert foreign locale]"; "The Meech Lake Crisis: Iggy was in [insert foreign locale]"; "The 1995 Referendum: Iggy was in [insert foreign locale]." These might be unfair to Iggy, but they wouldn't be an insult to internationalism, the philosophy which has spared the world a major war for 64 years and counting.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Jack, check this one out. Not as good as your idea, but along the same vein.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgkFPxUbPY&fe…
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

That was quick work on the Tories' part. I only had the idea an hour ago.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack_Mitchell

I wonder how an ad like that would play with younger voters. Sophia wasn't even born for every event they mention except the 1995 referendum and the tail end of Gretzky's career.

I find the idea that Wayne Gretzky's entire NHL career helped to shape Canada absolutely ridiculous, btw.
#99

Not Wayne's entire NHL career, just the part he played in Edmonton. We're ignoring his time in Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York and Phoenix.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

As do I. The inclusion of Gretzky was a fairly blatant attempt at populism.
Critical Reasoning

As do I. Blatant populist pandering.

http://intensedebate.com/people/jolyon jolyon

Iggy refers to himself as cosmopolitan because he doesn't really feel connected to any one country. Not sure why Cons are not supposed to use that term when Iggy uses it himself.

baldygirl

The Cons are using it as a slur. I think the point is that it shouldn't be a slur, but as Jack says, something to which people should aspire. I wish I were more worldly, had more exposure to vastly differing worldviews. I think cosmopolitan speaks of the possibility of international cooperation instead of blind nationalism.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

It's only 95% false, IMHO. There's doubtless no connection to the particular historical phenomenon of Europeans hating internationalists (or those perceived as internationalists, even if they'd never left their shtetl), but it still does appeal to the same narrowness of outlook in which being a "cosmopolitan" would somehow be a bad thing. Which is not to say that there aren't legitimate concerns (such as you have expressed, CR) about Ignatieff's decades abroad (and in particular whether he saw a conflict between being Canadian and being a cosmopolitan, which would be unacceptable), but they could have chosen a more felicitous way of raising that doubt than to use "cosmopolitan" as a slur. Even apart from 19th C historical context aside (below), it's a noble word; attacking Iggy for being a cosmopolitan is like attacking him for being "one of God's children" (ha ha ha).
mac

Wiki describes it this way: Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian language: безродный космополит, "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a Soviet euphemism introduced during Joseph Stalin's antisemitic campaign of 1949–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not only) to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack of patriotism, i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union.

Except for the Jewish part, lots of overlap with the attack ads – intellectual, rootless, lack of patriotism, cosmopolitan.

Sisyphus

The word had a very clear and direct reference through the Dreyfus era in France. I think Stalin was a Georgian school boy at the time.

http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com Olaf

Aaron – when you titled this post "Today in slurs", were you referring to the unforgivable slur of calling Ignatieff "cosmopolitan", or the comparatively mild slur of drawing a parallel between Harper's campaign against a political opponent and Stalin's ruthless persecution of the Jews?

baldygirl

I hardly think that contextualizing the use of cosmopolitan as a slur by comparing it to previous uses of cosmopolitan as a slur is in itself a slur.

Anon

Our media still hasn't been able to articulate the relationships between populism, demagoguery and fascism. They'll get there eventually, but it really is taking a lot of time.

"Cosmopolitan" has never been a slur in Canada until the Conservative demagogues decided it could be. Is fascism next? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Sisyphus

I think it’s kind of a third level slur. Maybe like tar baby.
http://intensedebate.com/people/jarrid jarrid

Get a life "Le p'tit gars"

kcm

Who's torquing the word cosmopolitan here? I don't think it's Aaron!
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

The beauty of ambiguous headlines is that they mean whatever you want them to mean.

kcm

Maybe Aaron could link the Gagnon piece. I read it this morning and thought she had a couple of good points.
In essence we have yet more appealing to the lowest common denominator and pandering to provincialism.
I had this really brought home to me while living on a small reserve on the BC coast. Oddly, when band members returned with a good education, or other accomplishment that would help to improve the community, they were as often as not met with resentment and occasional hostility. The feeling seemed to be – you went away, left us, and now you're back and taking up a well paid position. I had no idea that this kind of small minded provincialism [ understandable as it may be] had a home in the wider Canadian family ; guess i learned something.
But i have nothing but contempt for those who use such resentments for political gain. SH – a lowbrow panderer – ho much lower can you get that bar bud?

kcm

Boy they work quickly over at the PMO.:)
I suppose it was a filtre thingy – at least i hope so.

kcm

Yeesh…another comment gone south. What are you doing with them Macleans? Sending the tapes over to Steve's place? Wonder if that'll make it through?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

If they can't fix the filters, they should turn them off altogether. Commenters are far more likely to be upset by wonky, overzealous filtering than by the rare unfiltered comment that is actually offensive.

kcm

Agreed. That is unless they'd like to send them all back complete with redacted bits. This way Mac's ends up looking a little like a covey of maiden aunts.

http://intensedebate.com/people/macleans macleans

Working on it, I did manage to find and approve the above comment.
As I've posted elsewhere, I recommend signing up for a Intense Debate account.
Seems to prevent weird things from happening.

The bugs will be worked out, be patient.

Mulletaur

I'm not signing up for any Intense Debate account, you'll try to steal my soul. Delacourt is already stealing my ideas …
kcm

Thanks Macleans…iv'e met my quota of complaints…for today:)

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I think I've far exceeded my complaint quota for the whole month. ;-)

Jonathan, I appreciate your hard work, but I'm still not sold on the new system. I will try to be patient, and hopefully the bugs will be resolved soon.

Mulletaur

Your comment software is blocking words like 'q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n' and 'r-e-q-u-e-s-t', probably to block injection attacks. Please fix.

Wayne

ROFL – I love it … stalinist … then would that make Iggy a leninist? Or wait a sec Solzshenistin or whatever the author guy from Gulag 13 rumourd to have been a cosmonaut or wast that cosmopoltice or whatever the point was supposed to be. I love articles where the so called journalist dredges up scenarios taken so far out of context not to mention time and place that the point disappears into the fog of irrelevance!
catherine

Isn't it step one of due diligence to look up the word "cosmopolitan" on wikipedia [which has only a single item under "history" for cosmopolitan] if you are going to spend a million dollars on ads which use that term in the hope that people will attach a negative connotation to it?

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

No, and it's quite ridiculous to suggest that the use of a long-standing, common, perfectly good English word is somehow unacceptable, just because it was once misused in a foreign language. Imagine Churchill's response if he was told that the use of the word "cosmopolitan" should be circumscribed because of the Soviet misuse of the word космополит, or "kosmopolit".

It is incredibly stupid that we are even talking about this.

catherine

Before this ad, did you think of the word as having a negative connotation? I've been called it myself and never thought to take it as an insult. This ad is the first time I have seen it used as a negative.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the word cosmopolitan, but if you use it in a national ad campaign to try to conjure up negative feelings about someone's patriotism, you should know that it has been done before.

Austin So

The CPC campaign against Ignatieff is "vaguely" Stalinist?

Try the whole freakin' party!
ConDefender

This is too much! First attacking Poilievre for the tarbaby in a teacup thingy, now going after Harper based on this vague history. Next thing you know, Macleans will be claiming Lukiwski's neat division of people into type A's and B's is homophobic.
scf

I'm waiting for the post that claims the Cons are vampires. Wherry will find a way.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Are you sf?

http://intensedebate.com/people/KadyITQ KadyITQ

Grr. That thing where the filter autodeletes any comment containing the word "q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n" really is infuriating.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that it's also the name of a tasty and refreshing, if overhyped cocktail *and* an execrable magazine. I'm curious, though — aside from the possible creepy anti-Semitic/Stalinist connotations, would any of y'all actually mind being described as "cosmopolitan"? I'd be thrilled, although somehow, I don't think it's all that likely to happen.