Ross Douthat wrote a great Oped piece in Monday's NYT.
It describes the utter partisanship that now drives most of America: we either agree with everything one side does or disagree with everything the other side does.
In a description of the swing of the Pendulum, he decries the phenomenon, and offers a slight ray of hope!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/opinion/29douthat.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
I get the articles basis thoughts and agree with the phenomenom of partisanship. But what the article goes on to say about why it exists only touches on the lack of educated, thinking citizens. When you agree with a falsehood to support a political party you might as well say, I like diversity, but it really makes no sense and has no place. Everyone should be white and Christian. I fully understand that it is every American's right to speak their mind and voice their opinion. This is what has made our country great and free for 234 years. However it has also slowed need progress and changes (excluding WWII - when the axis threats seemed to get everyone on the same page.) But baring that it will create discourse that is akin to what I will term absurd jactitation(s) which further no cause, assist no citizen and predicate the same 'ol same 'ol.......
ReplyDeleteWhat is the definition of Progress?
ReplyDeletePolitically, "Progressive" has come to mean the achievment of what revolutions did not accomplish progressively, one law, one regulation at a time.
Progress used to mean constant improvements in every aspect of life and society.
We have a fairly educated populace, but the point of the article is that many of us stifle our thinking ability to blindly support one side or the other.
As for diversity, I am an African-American-Hispanic-Arab-Jew, but no side or issue owns me.
I can be a staunch environmentalist yet question "Global Warming" or the proposed remedies. We can and should think for ourselves and not just meekly choosing one ideology and buy it lock stock and barrel...
I was not looking for yet another forum in which one side would spew ideology and the other would counter with ideology, but rather for a center of intelligent people discussing issues intelligently.
ReplyDeleteYour diatribes about an uneducated public is partisan, and I dare say, insulting:
The Northeastern conventional wisdom is that the "uneducated" mess up Democracy.
Explain then why "uneducated" readers rank conservative books at the top of the New York Times bestsellers just about every week, from Glenn Beck, to Oreilley, to Coulter, ro Gingrich, to Morris, to Rove.
Either the claim is that people buy books and don't read them, or the claim is that they are wrongly educated so long as they do not agree with conventional progressive wisdom>
I live in the South. To call us uneducated is to perpetuate the elitist notion that unless you swallow the New York Times's editorial page lock stock and barrel, you are uneducated and regressive.
The fact is, if 100 percent of letters to the Times agree with the editorial, you folks are the scary sycophants
This was not the intent of the Pendulum blog conversation: I was looking for people who would want to explore the middle intelligently, in part by denouncing the demagoguery of the extremes, and in part by exploring areas of agreement
Obviously, I have failed, as people only care to demonize their opponents and reinforce their cothinkers. There are plenty of fora for that, I don't need to add a new one
G