So you're not convinced that global warming exists? And for those who do believe it exists, wouldn't ensuring that the world survives be a pressing issue?
How much impact we have over the world surviving is a debate we can have at another point. That can be debated. Whether or not global warming is entirely the result of carbon gases and things humans are doing to the planet is a debatable point. There's another point of view that the planet takes care of itself relatively well. And when it's fed up with us, it'll just get rid of us. Like fleas off a dog. We'll die. But the planet will go on without us. And whatever the next species that comes along -- the dolphins will take over for us. So that is another point of view that isn't raised at all. I'm not saying global warming isn't happening, but I'm saying there's room for debate about how it's happening, why it's happening and what to do about it, and there are global warming fanatics, just like there are fanatics for a lot of other things, like Republicans who believe all Democrats are the antichrist. And fanatical Democrats. And fanatical feminists who go batshit when Ted Kennedy comes out for Barack Obama. There are fanatics everywhere. And what they're fanatical about is a type of fundamentalism.
Are you a sissy?
I say on Page One that I'm a sissy too. I don't think any of us can avoid at least some sissitude and I've got plenty of sissitude in me. I use an iPod at the gym. I consider myself a sissy who looked around, one of the Holsteins who raised his head and said, wait, wait, we're all marching in the same direction here, and this is not a good direction to be marching in, maybe we should be heading over in that other direction. But I do not claim anywhere to be a non-sissy.
Is there anyway to get around or above the preponderance of sissitude?
The start, which is one of the main reasons I wrote the book, is to realize it. Like the people say at AA, the first step is to admit you're an alcoholic, and the first step in Sissy's Anonymous is to admit you're a sissy. And then to look to yourself and look to ways you're not speaking your own mind when you could be, you're not standing up for yourself when you could be, when you're acting, when you're being politically correct, when you're being knee-jerk, when you're being a fundamentalist, when you're fearing the entire world around you. I mean we're afraid of sunshine now, we're afraid of air, we're afraid of water, we're afraid of dirt. I think the first step is to realize it in yourself and then it's up to you to decide if you care, and if you care, I don't think it's that hard to start catching yourself being a sissy and stop.
The most controversial passage in the book might be when you suggest that the U.S.'s response to 9/11 was unimaginative and "sissified." You propose "The Race for the Keys" instead. You say President Bush should have called Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador, and demanded Osama bin Laden's head by "noon tomorrow" or else the U.S. would release a high-yield neutron bomb over Mecca, killing the entire population. Then you would've had Jews and Africans brought into Mecca so that they could take the house and car keys of the departed for their own. You're joking, right?
I believe that a) it couldn't have been any less effective than what we've done. Part of the problem with the way we go to war now is that we think wars can be fought cleanly and surgically and nice-guy-ly and at long-distance. We fight virtual wars now. War is a horrible, horrible business. It's the worst thing human beings do to one another in groups and I'm of the opinion that if you're going to go to war, you should go to war the way we did the last time we fought one correctly, which was World War II. We went berserk and we showed the world that we were the world's berserkers. And it ended World War II. Fighting it this way has dragged it out how many years now, and how many more years are we going to be stuck there? We saw that in Vietnam and we've seen that in other places. So yeah, I'm joking about "The Race for the Keys," but I'm not joking about, if you're going to fight it, get in there and fight it.
How many of the arguments and statements that you make in the book do you really believe and how many are there for the sake of provocation? For example, you say that if there is a God that perhaps Osama bin Laden really was sent to punish us. If it's hyperbole for the sake of attention, aren't you an Ann Coulter-like caricature?
To an extent, I am parodying the Ann Coulter-like caricatures. But what I do like about the Ann Coulter types is that they break through, in all their rudeness and their outrageousness, the level of sissy, polite discourse that we have fallen into as a nation, where nobody says anything in any strong terms. Everyone is dissembling and prevaricating, and being careful not to offend anyone else. I think it's good to offend one another once in a while. I think it's good to outrage one another once in a while. It's good to be balls-out and to say what you mean and maybe even to exaggerate what you mean, just to get through that sort of blanket of politeness that covers all of our public discourse now.
In the book, you define an unwillingness to grapple with the complexity of the world, to view everything in black vs. white, good vs. evil dualities à la President Bush as one of the key characteristics of being a sissy. But don't you ignore complexities yourself by creating these huge generalities and labeling practically everyone in America as a sissy?
Ha. Maybe. Maybe I am. Again, I don't claim to not be a sissy. I wanted to write a book that read the way a one-hour ranting monologue would sound if I were standing in front of you doing it. So there are some generalizations and some glossing going on there, obviously. Then again, sissies don't seem to want to read anything more than 10 pages. I have written long, deep books and no one seemed to want to read them, so I thought, I'll just keep this simple, I want to get this out, and we can fill in the blanks later.
Do you think writing this book has made you less of a sissy?
Good question. No. Probably not. I'm still a sissy. I'm thinking about it a lot more now, obviously, but I'm probably obsessing about it now like a sissy.
About the writer
Vincent Rossmeier is an editorial intern at Salon.
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