Why I Don't Need To Read the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page To Know I'm Right*
A friend pointed me to an LA Times editorial by Susan Jacoby that posits that the dumbness of American discourse, which she claims has risen over the past two decades, is caused by “the public’s increasing reluctance to give a fair hearing — or any hearing at all — to opposing points of view.”
Anecdotally at least, the thesis feels right. Except the article, though it runs to more than 1,500 words, blusters along without delivering a knockout punch. I have three critiques:
False Nostalgia: Jacoby writes as though we’ve lost touch with the good old days when we all listened to each other. Her only citation is a letter from John Adams to his idealistic foe, Thomas Jefferson, expressing an interest in “explaining ourselves to each other” before they died. (She does not mention if this little fireside chat ever took place.)
If private letters betwee public figures are the measure of a society’s open-mindedness, I am … baffled.
Blaming Technology: Jacoby claims that the “unprecedented array of choices, on hundreds of cable channels and the Web, have contributed to the decline of common knowledge and the denigration of fairness by both the right and the left.”
Except most people still get their information from local TV (network) news, which present, for the most part, views that are planted firmly in the middle of the political spectrum.
Not Created Equal: Jacoby ignores the fact that there are many points of view that do not deserve a “fair hearing.” Creationism cannot be weighed against evolution in a science text book. Weapons of mass destruction, whatever the Fox News audience believes, have not been found.
If some of us are unwilling to listen to people who expound ideas without factual basis, that doesn’t make us close-minded. That makes us sane.
* But sometimes I do, if I need a head-clearing jolt of anger.