The eCrozier

Michelle Wolf’s performance at the Annual Correspondent’s Dinner was mean-spirited and needlessly vulgar. But worse yet, it wasn’t very funny, except when she was poking fun at herself. Then she was quite funny. I’m not suggesting she shouldn’t play the court jester and hassle the “king and his courtiers.” Skewering the powerful has always been an important, needed task from comedians. But for the love of Pete, be funny doing it. She wasn’t, at least to me, and I love a good comedy routine (I’m a bishop after all).

A reader of my eCroziers wrote me recently urging me to “take on” Michelle Wolf since I’m always claiming I’m not a political partisan (this reader thinks I secretly am and is always trying to expose me, to which I say he should have better uses of his time). In his mind, by taking her on, I’d prove that I’m not a partisan who supports all things liberal. But here’s the underlying, mistaken assumption this reader makes by framing it that way: We all have our partisan “tribes” to which we belong and to our partisan tribes we offer unwavering loyalty. This means that even when a member of our tribe does something stupid or behaves in an ugly way, we must find a way to discount it or explain it away as not all that big of a deal. We thus become undiscerning apologists for our tribe, excusing our tribe’s faults and accentuating the faults of the other tribe.

We saw that with the women who came to President Clinton’s defense when it became clear he had a pattern of cheating on his wife. While they acknowledged his behavior, they argued that because he championed so many other issues they were concerned about, they’d excuse his philandering. We saw that with President Bush’s endorsement of torture. Those defending him said we had to go to the “dark side” to fight terrorism even though experts on interrogation argued that such torture was counter-productive, not to mention morally bankrupt. We saw that with President Obama’s use of drone executions of American citizens where the bomb was judge, jury, and executioner. We’re now seeing a similar pattern in those offering an apologia for our current president’s behavior toward women and his many other problematic behaviors.

Now back to Michelle Wolf’s performance at the Annual Correspondent’s Dinner: Why should criticizing or not criticizing her routine break down along partisan lines? Social scientists have studied this type of behavior for years and have arrived at consistent conclusions. They call it myside bias, which is the tendency to evaluate an event or another person’s actions in a manner biased toward the evaluating person’s already held opinions and attitudes. This often leads to the undiscerning apologia I described above by those who defend such immoral behavior. And researchers have discovered another important element in all this: it’s totally unrelated to the intelligence of the person. In other words, smart people fall into this trap as easily as anyone.

Sometimes our leaders behave in morally reprehensible ways. Naming that behavior for what it is shouldn’t be determined by our political convictions. And, yes, sometimes a comedy routine is just mean-spirited and not very funny even if you agree with some of the comedian’s points. Why can’t we just say that? I just did.

+Scott