Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU

158 Pages·2009·2.22 MB·English

by  Wendy Kaminer

worst instincts
also by wendy kaminer
Free for All
Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials
True Love Waits
It’s All the Rage
I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional
A Fearful Freedom
Women Volunteering
Worst Instincts
cowardice, conformity,
and the aclu
Wendy Kaminer
beacon press
boston
Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 2009 by Wendy Kaminer
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Brief passages of this book appeared in the Wall Street Journal,
Free Inquiry, and at The Free For All blog.
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Text design by Yvonne Tsang at Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaminer, Wendy.
Worst instincts : cowardice, conformity, and the ACLU /
Wendy Kaminer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8070-4430-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. American Civil Liberties Union. 2. Social groups—Moral and
ethical aspects—United States. 3. Social pressure—United States.
4. Social influence—United States. 5. Kaminer, Wendy. I. Title.
JC599.U5K36 2009
323.06’073—dc22 2008052658
To those honorable, hardworking
ACLU staff members who still
strive to protect civil liberty.

contents
1
Mob Scenes 1
2
The Problem with Partisanship 11
3
Not the Crime but the Cover-up 18
4
The Political Shouldn’t Be Personal 32
5
Facts Don’t Matter 48
6
Money Changes Everything 64
7
Potemkin Villages 88
8
Gag Rules 105
9
Going It Alone 130
Acknowledgments 139
Notes 140

1
Mob Scenes
“Any regrets?” my husband asked my father, an unrepen-
tant atheist on his deathbed at ninety-one. My father paused
thoughtfully and said, “Once, I voted for a Republican.” We
laughed; he paused again and added, “No wait—that wasn’t
the worst part. The worst part was, I voted for him because
he was Jewish.”
My father never lost his timing or his mistrust of both re-
ligion and tribalism. But despite his intellectual disdain for
ethnic solidarity, he’d been tempted by it, to his everlasting
chagrin. At least once, his convictions had fallen to the ata-
vistic power of the tribal instinct (which is only exacerbated
by historic persecution).
I don’t mean to equate tribalism with religion; they con-
verge in Judaism, but not necessarily in other faiths. Indeed,
shared religious beliefs can bring people together despite
their ethnic differences, just as religious differences can drive
apart people with common ethnicities. Tribalism thrives
quite apart from religion; an association of atheists can be
just as insular and mistrustful of outsiders as any religious
group. The tribal instinct is often powerful in groups of
people who feel besieged (it’s what atheists and beleaguered
religious minorities share); but none of us is immune to its
temptations. Tribalism is the dark side of associational life.
The vices of association have been exhaustively docu-
mented and explained by social psychologists, whose dem-
onstrations of group dynamics (and groupthink) provide
1