THERE ARE two types of buzzwords in today's policy debates: political and substantive. A buzzword can best be defined as a word used repeatedly to make a point. Political buzzwords are often ad hominem attacks disguised as substantive debate points. Examples of political buzzwords are abundant: "flip-flop," "cut-and-run," "homophobe," etc. These words are used repeatedly with varying degrees of accuracy by politicians wishing to attribute undesirable traits to their opponents. A second prominent type of buzzword is a substantive one, which, rather than being a political attack, represents an actual policy position. Examples of this are the "free market," "democracy," "pro-choice," etc. The most regrettable feature of these buzzwords is simple: They sound simple, so their meanings and values are often left without debate. With the examples of "flip-flopper," a political buzzword, and "democracy," a substantive buzzword, we can see where today's national debates have been lacking.
"Flip-flopper" was the single most repeated buzzword against Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in the 2004 election. Its implication was simple: Kerry's opinions were unstable and subject to erratic change, perhaps as a function of the political climate. Regardless of meaning, the term was catchy and ultimately fatal to Kerry's campaign. Its effect on debate was equally clear: If Kerry would criticize the war in Iraq, the Bush team could simply point to the fact that he voted for the war and then call him a flip-flopper. While the fallacies inherent to this are obvious, I will for posterity's sake identify a few. The logic implied by the term is simple: You voted for the war, so you can't criticize it if things go unpredictably wrong. However, it is not clear that voting for an ideal type precludes an individual's right to criticize the practical handling of that responsibility. Furthermore, having a political motive to make an argument is immaterial to the substance of the argument -- real debate should focus on the criticism, not the critic.
Finally, contrary to what the term flip-flopper implies, politicians should be encouraged to be open-minded in their views. Unfortunately, the last election promoted recalcitrant ideology as virtuous and constant policy reevaluations as vice. This reversal of political virtue is currently plaguing the Bush administration, which refuses to re-evaluate its position and strategy in Iraq. The consequence: awkward, bloody stalemate until the 2008 presidential election brings fresh leadership.
While the problems with political buzzwords are admittedly obvious, substantive buzzwords pose more subtle challenges. Take for example the use of the word "democracy" as a foreign policy buzzword. The idea of democracy is crucial to the conservative position on Iraq -- a successful democracy translates into a successful battle in the war on terror. Their faith in this formula manifests itself in the terms they choose to describe Iraq: fledgling democracy, young democracy, struggling democracy, etc. These terms have an array of implications (Iraq is almost there, we've laid the foundations for democracy, and so on), all of which have a similar second implication: Conservative foreign policy is working.
Most people -- even conservatives -- will admit that the logic above seems intuitively flawed or incomplete, and they're right. The primary concern here is a definitional fallacy where, in fact, there is no satisfying definition for a word that serves as the crux of the argument. What is a democracy? The Bush administration's definition is largely methodological (the presence of free and fair elections).
The problem with this procedural definition is that it assumes the fruits of democracy flow from its free and fair elections. This assumption ignores the elections of many Latin American and African nations, where popular governments quash the rights of minorities. More embarrassingly, this definition ignores the Federalist Papers, no doubt our nation's greatest contribution to political thinking. In the Federalist Papers, several of our founding fathers highlight the shortcomings of democracy and then present structural and substantive means by which to address these concerns. For them, democracy was not per se a "good" thing. Democracy was only good so long as power and ambitions were checked and fundamental rights guaranteed. Even then, they did not allow everything to be democratic at once: The Senate would be appointed rather than not elected.
Thus, underlying the free and fair elections of democracy should be the guarantees of substantive benefits (rights, corruption-free government, order, etc.) -- if the two clash, the former should be temporarily sacrificed for the latter. When conservatives cheer about Iraq's first national elections, they show that their ideology has confused means and ends. In the meantime, Iraqis see no visible benefits from having a democracy, and anti-democratic or anti-American voices who point out the lack of benefits begin to have more persuasive power.
The point of this discussion is to highlight shortcomings in one of the most important components of our own democracy: debate. By sacrificing substance to sound-bytes, and by foregoing the questioning of terms, we consider good per se (such as democracy), we are abdicating our civic responsibilities in pursuit of political victories. The long-term consequences of "staying the course" would be the tragically ironic reduction of our democracy to one procedural right, the right to vote.
Sina Kian's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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