Andrew Sullivan is just full of bad news:
And then the worst news on this front all year: “Nearly half of voters, 46 percent, believe the news media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration.” That rises to 76 percent of Republicans. Twenty-eight percent of all voters — and 46 percent of Republicans — believe that the government should be able to remove the licenses from outlets that criticize the president. The First Amendment lives; but the beliefs and practices and norms that buttress it are atrophying very fast.
Which is flabbergasting, and suggests the people have lost track of what has made the United States great throughout all these years – freedom of the press.
And on what evidence do these doubters of the media base their opinions? Can they point at massive fraud at newspapers with decades of experience and prestige?
Has it ever occurred to them that just because they don’t like the news, it doesn’t mean it’s fabricated?
Many of them may think they’re tough conservatives, but from here, all I see are lazy sods who are too weak to accept that we do have an incompetent Administration bent on enriching the head honcho while kowtowing to extremist sensibilities. These tough guys want to come forward with some evidence of fraud? Fine, leap forward with it. Maybe you’ll convince someone.
But it must be done with a willingness to be convinced themselves.
I do appreciate Andrew equating the left and the right when it comes to curtailment of free speech:
Or look at what happened to a speaker from the ACLU at the College of William & Mary in Virginia a couple of weeks back. She came to give a talk about — yes! — free speech, only to be shouted down by the usual mob, who were at least honest enough to chant: “Liberalism Is White Supremacy,” and “The Revolution Will Not Uphold Your Constitution.” They physically prevented the speaker from even talking one-on-one with those who were interested in a dialogue.
The unity of the far left and the Trump right on this is as striking as it is depressing. What they share is a contempt for liberal democracy. Truth to both of them is merely an instrument of power. Instead of relying on an open exchange of ideas in order to determine the always-provisional truth, both sides (yes, both sides) insist that they already know the truth and need simply to acquire the power to impose it on everyone else. Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson weeps.
Which is reminiscent of Michael Gerson’s WaPo editorial of yesterday. If we discard one of our unifying principles, then when shall the rest go? Will the replacement unifying principle be He with the biggest mob in the street wins? How does that improve all of our lives?
It doesn’t. It pleases those demagogues and master manipulators who are pulling the strings, but it will irretrievably ruin the lives of those who they pretend to lead. The great achievement of liberal democracies is moderation, the great enemy of the power-hungry, the zealot, and the absolutist. For decades these sorts of unhappy people have been mostly suppressed, not by the government so much as the willingness of reasonable citizens to examine the arguments this lot have put forth, and give it the belly laugh it largely deserves. Add in the gatekeepers that so many have railed against, and those whose lust for certainty or power were left with bitter failure.
But no longer. Many Americans, perhaps faced with so much information and choices supplied by the Internet that they’re worn out, have chosen to belong to tribes, where they may think they’re thinking, but in the end they’re just sopping up the soggy white bread, full of milk, for their intellectual sustenance, and occasionally stampede here and there at the hint of their hidden masters.
A sad depth to which the far right and far left have fallen. But you can take this as a signpost in the barren wastes – if you feel sympathy for the positions of the far left or right, then it’s time to limber up the mind again. How to do this? Pick that issue of which you’re most certain, and try to pick it apart. Don’t be shy or slothful about it, really go at it. Take that shovel to the foundations on which it rests and ask yourself how to falsify those foundations. Really try to persuade yourself that you’re wrong.
And if you can’t do it, don’t take it as encouragement that you’re right. Tomorrow, do it again with a different issue.
And again.
And so long as you fail to change your mind, I’ll tell you again and again and again – you’re intellectually failing. You’re a wussy tribe member. You receive your orders and you march on them because you’re intellectually atrophied.
And do you know how I can say this with complete certainty[1]?
Because there are so many issues out there that it’s inevitable that you’ll be able to persuade yourself to change your mind on one of them. Sound weak? It’s not. It’s the truest thing in the world – managing in the modern world is hard and we often get things wrong. Even the big things.
And the most important part of this exercise isn’t changing your mind.
It’s learning uncertainty. It’s realizing that we can’t be certain about many things, so compromise is not a bad thing – it’s the sign of mature adult minds coming to an understanding.
And that’s really the point of this entire post. Compromise is not weakness. Whoever said that should have his fingers broken. Compromise is the acknowledgement that the modern world, for all that we aren’t dying of tiger attacks, scarlet fever, or smallpox, is still a hard place to navigate, and not all the lessons you learned at your never-wrong leader’s knee are actually right.
So go out there with that jackhammer and whack away at your most cherished beliefs. I try to do this all the time, and it’s quite invigorating. I’ve been changing my mind about gun control over the last decade, for example, from anti- to some form of pro-gun control.
And you can make those changes, too. If you’re willing to return to being a thinking American, instead of retreating into tribalism and spinning on command.
Let me know how it goes.
