More practically those who shatter icons in
all directions will collect approbium from all directions. Though they may
collect an attaboy from one side or the other occasionally, one aw shit
cancels a thousand attaboys. Ridicule 999 liberal and 1 conservative icon or
vice versa and one might as well not have lived.
It is not limited to two sided issues but
in humans there exist few places for a person who attacks in all directions.
So when we see an person like H. L. Menkin who passed for a liberal in his
day, was his position as a thinker safe when fifty years later it surfaced
his opinions of races and Jews were the same as was common in his time,
everything he wrote, previously praised, was written off.
Then was the the praise for thinking or not
for the thinking rather for the position he took? Could not a clever fool
take the same position and garner similar praise? And how does one tell the
difference?
A case could be claim that if enough years
go by all the previous issues will be forgotten and a determination can be
made. But the nearest example we have of that is Aristophanes and I would
suggest that is more based upon modern ignorance of real Greek life than
upon his wit. We have no idea of the complete social setting in his time and
his breadth may have presented only one side of the thought of the times.
Rather to be successful, an iconoclast must
be a member of only one side and never attack that side. And iconoclast is
simply a market niche like any other.
Perhaps I have bored you to tears but if
you got this far let me go into a recent example, Newt Gingrich. He is a man
who, like him or not, agree with him or not, he calls them as he sees them.
When he started this Congress he called for questioning everything, that
thinking was on the table. He assigned a tutorial reading list to the new
Congress.
His point was not only to challenge the
icons that had governed Congress for 40 years but to call everything into
question. It failed. When he put traditional conservative thinking on the
table he lost the thrust of media attention. He still gets a few seconds now
and then and agreed the thrust is now with the committee chairmen but under
the presumption the media at least wants to know who their audience wants to
hear has shifted from "question everything" to challenging what is
happening.
For a more longstanding issue a person can
make a career of joking about the Muslims rhetoric against Israel but vice
versa is the kiss of death.
If that is not to your liking find someone
puncturing the posturing of the Christians against homosexuality and
abortion and then see what happens when that same person punctures the equal
stupidity of homosexuals and the pro-abortion types.
Find a person both strongly supporting the
arts and the art of western culture and at the same time being against
government funding of the arts and see if he has any friends. Certainly he
has friends but does he have someone willing to give him a platform?
If you wish to be an iconoclast be prepared
to have to find some form of mammon that will give you sanctuary and guard
your back. And thus you see in western history a dirth of examples of people
who will poke holes in every fallacy. You see none who will agree there are
no correct answers.
There is a place that holds all human ideas
are humorous. That is the Tao. But then, even the enlightened know there is
no fun to be had without choosing a side. And of course the penalty for
switching sides is well understood.