Out Of Context
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I doubt there is anyone who does not learn somewhere by his or her late teens what is meant by the expression “taken out of context.” Still, it strikes me that it would make a worthwhile classroom exercise for high school students to explore the phenomenon in a structured academic setting, especially during the time around major elections, by discussing examples of how politicians seek to shape public opinion with this dishonest, but often effective, technique.
Is it always a “dishonest” technique? I would say yes. We are talking about deliberately seeking a way to distort someone’s original intention by quoting his words exactly — but in a manner that misrepresents their meaning. It requires forethought and deliberation to do that, to set up the deceptive context. The defense of those who resort to the tactic is always something like “politics ain’t beanbag,” as if winning elections is important enough to justify slandering an opponent.
The concept can be introduced in the classroom by having students look at an original statement made by someone in public life, and then compare it to how his opponents report what he said.
We can find examples of how both political parties resort to the tactic. It is not a partisan character defect. I’ll start with an example of how conservatives and Republicans play the game. I have in mind the way they distorted what Secretary of State John Kerry meant when he discussed the November terrorist killings in Paris shortly after they happened. Kerry was speaking at the American Embassy in Paris.
Here is what Kerry said: “There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘Okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.’ This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.”
Ever since, conservative critics, especially on Fox News, have been saying that Kerry was contending that there was something legitimate about the Islamic terrorists killing the cartoonists and staff who put together the comic strip Charlie Hebdo because they had a “rationale.”
But, come on: Anyone looking at Kerry’s words as they stand, without a political axe to grind, can see that was not what he meant. His point was that the Charlie Hebdo shooting was “particularized,” meaning that the assassination of the staff at the newspaper was a result of what they had done; that it was not an indiscriminate assassination of Parisians in general, such as the killings at the Paris rock concert — and that this escalation in tactics presented a new problem for those seeking to stop terrorism.
Consider how Kerry took back the word “legitimacy” as soon as it came out of his mouth, replacing it with “rationale.” He was not speaking from a prepared script. He misspoke. He knew that. Moreover, “rationale” does not mean moral or just, but simply that there was a logic behind the action. Which there was. Evil actions usually have a rationale, unless they are performed by a madman.
There is much to be criticized about how the Obama administration is handling the war against Muslim terrorists. Secretary of State Kerry did not reveal one of those things in his comments in Paris. It was a cheap shot to twist his words to make it seem as if he did.
The way that the left in the United States deliberately misrepresented what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia meant in early December, when he spoke of the effect of affirmative action programs, is another example.
Here is what Scalia said (actually he was merely reporting arguments made by opponents of affirmative action and not giving his personal view): “It does not benefit African-Americans to — to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less — a slower-track school where they do well”; that it does not serve blacks for them to be “pushed into schools that are too advanced for them.”
Scalia pointed out that “most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. . . . They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re — that they’re being pushed ahead in — in classes that are too — too fast for them.”
The reaction from his critics? Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said Scalia “endorsed the idea that African-American students are somehow inherently intellectually inferior from other students.” A headline on the website of the Huffington Post read, “Scalia thinks black students belong in ‘slower track’ schools.” A reporter on Yahoo News said Scalia “believes blacks shouldn’t go to good schools because they’re dumber than whites.”
Where to begin? First of all, Scalia’s point is not that all blacks are incapable of attending elite universities. That should be obvious. There is nothing in his comments to indicate he is talking about the entire black race. His focus is only on those blacks who are not ready to compete in elite schools, and that pushing them into those schools will do them more harm than good. Which is an unassailable point. What is better, to go to a less prestigious university and graduate with a degree that gains you a successful career, or to flunk out of an elite school to which you were admitted when you were not ready for the challenge?
Remember, the rationale behind affirmative actions programs is that minority students from troubled homes and dysfunctional high schools should not be expected to perform as well on entrance examinations and standardized tests as students from stable families, good neighborhoods, and prestigious high schools.
Scalia was making the same argument: that many of these students will perform well at “lesser” colleges and eventually catch up with students from more advantaged backgrounds, whereas they make flunk out of an elite school for which they are not prepared.
It would be racist to say that the entire black race is incapable of succeeding at elite universities. Scalia did not say that. But there is nothing racist about saying that not every black who applies to a prestigious university is capable of doing well at the school. That is common sense. And it is what Scalia said. Look: Not every white is capable of graduating from Cal Poly. What could be racist about saying the same about blacks?
Are Scalia’s critics saying that there are no examples of minority students who do not do well at elite universities after they have been admitted through an affirmative action program; that these universities can instantly transform every affirmative action student into a success? Everyone knows that is not the case.
Then what is wrong with saying that? Whatever one thinks of the position Scalia advanced, it is not racist. High school students would profit from making a side-by-side comparison between his words and what his critics say that he said. The intellectual dishonesty at work will stare them in the face.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
