Bowling for Coherence
There are thinkers that I have read and studied with whom I disagree profoundly, but who have still challenged my own thinking. Writers such as David Hume, Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus have, if nothing else, helped me to better understand what I believe by forcing me to deal with cogent arguments of things I do not believe.
Michael Moore does not fall into that category. I rented Bowling for Columbine and watched it last night, thinking that since it did, after all, get an Oscar and was the subject of some vehement right-wing anger, maybe it had some good points. Maybe, I thought, his overall perspective is flawed, but he's still got some good points.
Alas, on the whole, he does not. Here is, as far as I could tell, what his main points were; his reasons for why the tragedy at Columbine happened:
- White, corporate America is evil and hates and fears blacks
- Our government recklessly bombs poor, defensive countries like Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq
- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft are in league with corporate America and so are using 9/11 to promote their own financial interests
- Our media glorifies and thus promotes violence
- We're not like Canada, which is the place to be. Presumably because their media isn't so hyper and because they recognize the universal right of universal healthcare (particularly well expressed by class-skipping teenagers at Taco Bell)
- Welfare-to-work is an abomination
Notice that nowhere in here is anything remotely resembling a worthwhile analysis of the motives and history of the actual Columbine killers. Moore probably has a good point about are media glorifying violence. But the rest of the stuff is just vain, Marxist-sounding dribble. Does he really expect us to believe that the Kosovo bombing on the morning of the Columbine shooting had any effect on the decisions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? How do we know that Harris and Klebold took Bill Clinton as their role model for violence and not Marilyn Manson? Did Harris and Klebold even know that Lockheed Martin shipped missiles through Littleton in the dead of the night? How are the motives of Harris and Klebold - two, white middle-class suburbanites - related to the motives of the black 8yr-old from a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood near Flint, MI who killed Kayla Rolland?
Moore talks a lot about big, overarching trends in big governments and big corporations. But he does nothing to show how, or if, that actually affected the choices and decisions of the Columbine killers. Maybe Harris and Klebold were impacted by Clinton's bombing of Kosovo, corporate greed, and violent images in the media. Maybe its not as complex as that; maybe its just that Harris and Klebold were genuinely (gasp) wicked people who, in spite of whatever influences they had, bear full and final responsibility for their actions.
Moore's fact...err... handling has been thoroughly dissected and analyzed throughout the Internet (check out Moore Lies for a collection of articles on Moore's creativity). I don't think he's the ruthlessly evil person that some make him out to be, though. Instead I get the impression that he sat down one day, read a bit of Marx, maybe even all of the Communist Manifesto, and thought to himself, "dude, you know, like, economics really does explain everything that happens. Like, if people were all free from fear and worry and able to pursue their dreams and desires, then life would be a heck of a lot better. All this [insert sweeping arm motions] is because The Man is holdin' people down!" And so began the process of subverting everything to an ideological system that is so busy with systems and trends, it forgets about people (and facts).
As an addendum, one person who I did gain respect for when watching the movie was actually Charlton Heston (I'm not persuaded by the editing job Moore did on Heston's speeches). When Moore interviewed Heston, Heston, in spite of Moore's relentless and deceptive badgering, did what was probably the best he could have done in the circumstances. He politely said, "I think we disagree on these issues" and when Moore wouldn't shut up, Heston left. Heston did not cuss Moore out, or physically assault him, which is what I would have attempted to do in Heston's shoes.
