I would first like to say what I do not want the methodology to accomplish. I do not want the result of my researches to be more hate, but rather better calculated ways to shame Republicans into better behavior and sounder governance. All of the standard tactics have failed, so this is my opportunity to broaden horizons just a bit with approaches that have worked well for millennia, but which so very many believe are 'below the belt'. Recalling Jefferson, it were better in the last resort to fight fire with fire.
Whether in campaigns, in marketing policies, or living a lie, we all rely, to one extent or another, on plausible deniability, throw-and-run juvenility, the fait accompli and the garden variety of rhetorical exaggerations and distortions. The difference between the Republican approach to these tactics and most of our own comes from differing Weltanschauungs, the first of which looks on the above enumerated tactics as exemplifying the sort of stealth satisfying the proposition that ends justify means, whereas the other sees them broadly as below the belt resorts to barbarism. This is a cultural artifact that will frame the arguments.
But I will also defend a precarious corollary: wherever ends justify means (I am not speaking of Fletcher's "situation ethics') the methods employed predispose, and in wartime presuppose, contempt -- not only for the perceived enemy, but for all who are in the lower classes of humanity. Republicans in leadership ironically (but not really surprisingly) hold even the undercarriage of their own ranks in contempt, a fact we now know of for a second reason, namely, the fact that we and they both know their policies harm their own base by itself belies their expostulations to the contrary.
And we can say this, why? How about the fact that inflation-adjusted disposable income for blue-collar wages over the period of Republican economic ideology have actually gone down? They stayed level or went down even in the boom-times of the 1980's. And we know why. Republicans exist for themselves. They took the lion's share of productivity and revenue gains. When the results are tallied and studied the same rationale will doubtless apply to the 2000-2008 period. We can go further, but why? What kind of hypocrisy does it take to think pounding a lie to the contrary will work? Of course it does work, and we also know the "why' of that: he-said-she said journalism that leaves the underclass believing that every Republican fabrication reflects as much truth as every actual truth. There is plenty of blame to go around.
The methodology proper involves the use of a cultural tool of typology. Though America is nominally dignity-based because its mythic ideals rooted in religion and law are grounded in (inherent) dignity rather than (merited) honor, much of its casual/colloquial behavior remains close to honor-based norms derived from tradition. We will show that Republicans, while giving lip service to dignity-based myth, apply honor-based principles, often in ways that actual honor-based peoples would not approve of. The potlatch ceremonies of the North Coast Pacific Indians, to cite one of countless examples, illustrates what the powerful are expected to do. A modern society, rather than asking the wealthy to literally throw wealth away to prove their worthiness to merit trust, takes the more reasonable and logical form of taxation. Check out here, as one of countless examples, to see what properly managed and collected taxes actually can do, but which, owing solely to laxity and lobbying, do not. Do not expect Republicans to pay up without a fight.
Along with the honor-dignity binary, we also have two subclasses existing somewhat autonomously. Each is a 'cult' in the sense that a portion is abstracted from an original whole, then modified in some manner to reflect select values. All cults meet this broad definition. Contrary to popular belief, however, cults can be good. The honor-based cult, for example, wishes simply to take the best of society's principles, rarefy them and then apply them as exemplars for the remainder of society. All of the professions began their careers thus. All offices exemplify the honor cult concept. Thorstein Veblen's "workmanship' does likewise.
To compliment the honor-based cult is the dignity-based, which not only is not good, it is as bad as bad gets, defining arrogance, hypocrisy and cynicism all at once. The members of this cult have determined that they and they alone possess true dignity, and as such are deserving of its best fruits. While lip service is given out to the rest of society, policies are organized about ensuring the power and perks of the cult membership. To be truthful, most all honor-based cults devolve and degrade so as to adopt some or all of the negative traits of the dignity cult. You can expect arguments painting Republicans as one the world's primary cults of dignity.
De Officiis -- the duty of honor
From the requirement of self-respect, to the occasional craving for others' respect, to the sometimes fawning respect for authority, honor is a many-headed hydra throughout the Near- and Middle East and far beyond. Honor-based cultures of all stripes, and not merely the narrow swath throughout what adventurer Richard Francis Burton called the "Sotadic Zone', give their unalloyed attention to matters redolent of honor. At the extremities, violations become extreme. Banishment and honor-killing are the extremes par excellence. For Socrates, the first was the allowed alternative, against which he preferred hemlock -- just to keep things in the correct perspective.
Patriarchal cultures are, so far as I can divine, universally honor-based. While not all honor-based cultures are patriarchal, all have a marked tendency to offer favored status to men of one sort or another, whether patriarch, father-husband, or a specified uncle. Even matriarchal societies are limited in the sway of women; men receive understated but not for that reason less real control. In a phrase, men will be men. Testosterone and all that.
Observe the Republican long-standing positions on family values and the place for women, both in the home (where they belong ideally) and in the workplace (where they are kept in their place and underpaid). Observe long-standing Republican views on manliness and homosexuality, and patriotism and warmongering. And xenophobia and bigotry and prejudice. All of these are facts -- so long, that is, as they are treated as a generality throughout the Republican membership and not directed at any given individual. It all amounts to patriarch-speak on modern steroids, and for some curious reason half or more of Americans just eat this crap up. Makes one wonder. Thomas Frank's question (What's the Matter with Kansas) remains as provocative as ever. In addition to the other objectives I will attempt to make partial sense of a counter-intuitive fact -- those who's normative interests presuppose Democratic Party credentials have taken to voting Republican. Honor has not a little to do with it.
Islands ahoy
A superficial survey would leave a person forgiven for assuming that for Republican sensibilities, every man is an island (sorry, Ernest). Honor, a product of social esteem, has a lot to say about that. In cultures where honor is common denominator throughout mythology, it is the expected consequence of activities serving the commonweal. Honor bespeaks respect and respectability, extending ultimately into trustworthiness and that to a singular office in which personal influence is magnified, though usually at the expense of power -- indirect influence versus direct manipulation. One writer, speaking of Japan, referred to "authority without power' as the subtitle to his monograph.
Mid-sixteenth century Venice saw the reinterpretation of their Dogeship in way that paralleled the classic honor-based view of authority trimmed (in this instance fully stripped) of power. In so doing, the Venetians successfully turned back a steady declination into decadence and degradation, as H. Trevor-Roper attests:
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