The Sheila Variations

I ran across a thread of lefties whining that George W. had a tribute to Reagan on the campaign web site and I nearly flipped my lid.

People have gone fucking insane. What I can't decide is if it's always been this bad and the internet's just exposing it, or if it's really just this bad.

"There is no communication between the sides, and any kind of rational political debate is impossible."

Absolutely true, and I'm sick of it.

Red is far more of a history expert than I, but I can say that the state of our politics right now seems more acidic and poisonous than I can recall since I started paying attention to such things.

Politics is supposed to involve the art of compromise, because the government exists to serve ALL the people, not some narrow constituency. When absolute victory or absolute defeat are the only options, the result is bad government - no matter who "wins."

My idea of the way it ought to be is intelligent, sophisticated people like Pat Moynihan and Bob Dole debating the issues and working fiercely for their most important causes, but doing so in a civil manner with the recognition that they need to get along with each other and compromise in many cases for the government to function properly. Not too long ago, such a circumstance existed in reality. At this point, it's starting to sound like a ridiculous pipe dream...

I really think that political polarization is increasing, independent of the internet phenomenon, and I've been thinking a lot about why this is so. It baffles me.

We are in a time of comparatively clear moral choices. We're involved in an struggle-to-the-death with the most vile, evil, depraved people in the known universe - yet there is a striking absence of unamimity about opposing such enemies.

There are no other really divisive issues out there - it's hard to find a lot of people who are worked up about the Kyoto Accord.

Yet almost everyone has strikingly strong opinion about the other side of the political fence.

And when queried, many of the opinions come down to "I don't like how the other guy looks, or sounds, or smells" or something. It doesn't seem very rational, but it does seem very real.

I think the polarization is exaggerated by the mass media, which does seem to have become much more aggressively politicized in recent years, but that doesn't totally explain it either.

I think it is some kind of "megatrend", which is leading... somewhere. I don't know where, but it makes me nervous.

CW: We could use Rebecca West right about now. Ms. Megatrend herself. :)

Full disclosure: I'm a born-again conservative talk show host (Born again in the sense that I'd been out of the biz for 17 years), every Saturday at a local station.

Do I think the argumentative media - conservative talk show, liberal books - convert people? Maybe. Does anyone really try to? Speaking as a conservative talk show host in a liberal bastion, I say "Absolutely. Every show". Have I converted anyone? On a few issues, yes. I know I have.

Has the polarization been worse than this? Oh, yeah. Much worse. The early 1800's were horrible, and the media did its dangedest to whip up partisan fervor during the late 19th-early 20th centuries; journalism as we (supposedly) know it today is a response to teh rabid partisanship of that era, symbolized by the Hearst papers. On the plains, the battles betwen populists and conservatives devolved into gunplay at times. And there was that Civil War thingie...

There is nothing new under the sun.

Amen, Red. And there's lots of Dame Rebecca's contemporaries I'd like to have back as well.

Ah Mitch - You hit on something I've been thinking about. I know that the polarization was probably worse at the time of the American revolution and civil war, and possibly comparable in the period leading up to WWII (after all there were real fears of a communist revolution in this country in the 1930s). But what happened next? Bloody war and wrenching social change, that's what. That's why I'm worried.

I was thinking along the same lines, Mitch. That Burr-Hamilton duel was worse than today's rhetoric/theater by a long shot (No pun intended).

Discourse changes over time and its pendulum has swung to the shrill side but it will swing back.

Yup.

That's one excellent thing about being a history buff. You realize that nothing is invented newly with each generation, and you get a little bit of perspective on how terrible things are.

Blogs aren't much better. It's the same arguments over and over.

Although, red, I disagree that NOBODY changes their minds. Actually, we know from polling and market research that some DO. They are the targets of all the gabbing. It's a kind of information warfare; different intellectual schools viaing for mindshare.

I'm seriously considering starting a web site concerned with helping to actually either RESOLVE issues, or at least provide a handy reference outlining the pro-con arguments. Like Snopes, one of its goals would be to identify truth where it can be identified. Unlike blogs, it would not be an endless cycle of arguments that fade away into the archives only to be rehashed the next year, but more of an encylopedia. (I'm specifically thinking of making it a wiki instead of a blog.)

Also, I want it to use the latest XML markups/"semantic web" ideas. This is actually a big part of the plan, because it would facilitate cooperation.

I'd tell you what the domain name I'm planning for it, but I want that to be a secret until I reserve it.

I find it hard to believe that Bill O'Reilly would change ANYBODY's mind. I really do. But then again - what do I know?

Yes, please let me know when you launch your site.

There is no way to completely eliminate bias, but I want some actual standards for weighing the validity of various arguments.

It's ambitious, I know. I'd probably have to start small, and focus on the XML methods for marking up the arguments and counterarguments, evidence, counterevidence, etc.

The initial set of marked-up issues would be small and cover several unrelated topics (definitely not all political) in different fields, to demonstrate the overall methodology, standards, etc.

I don't have cable, and know O'Reilly only from reputation.

But, to focus on the "some people actually change their minds" point (away from my pipe dream):

Look at it this way: A lot of bloggers were surprised when market research revealed that a high percentage of voters still didn't know that Kerry was a Vietnam veteran as late as March, 2004.

The political schools know this. They know that, at any given time, some people have only just started to "tune in" to the election/issue/whatever. They want to make sure that, whenever this happens, THEIR school's attitudes, opinions, worldview, "frame" is presented to convince said person at the moment they begin to pay attention.

That is why we have the constant gabfest. It's just like advertising.