Comfort of Ignorance
Over the long weekend, I managed to gain a slight appreciation for something I had pretty much given up on: Internet commentary. Compared to the commentary offered by family and friends, Internet commentary seemed halfway informed. The most common theme was the belief that we faced obvious choices that people were unwilling to choose.
Of course those who follow politics are aware that difficult policy choices are being avoided. No, the START treaty is not a difficult choice. Tax cuts for everyone was not a difficult choice even though it was an irresponsible one. Health care reform was difficult, but it is the exception that proves the rule. Those that actually participated in the process and negotiated in good faith were punished. Those that demagogued were rewarded. (No, the Republicans weren’t offering principled objections.) And that is the crux of the matter: the people do not demand intelligence and prudence from their representatives and their representatives don’t give it; the people want vague platitudes and pollyannish storytelling and are given it.
Being the good guest I am, I chose not to discuss politics and religion at the family gatherings. I am beginning to think this injunction is not a good one. Perhaps family members should be made to understand that their political and religious objections are not respectable. Perhaps we should stop rewarding the most ignorant person in any debate and stop punishing those that bother to inform themselves. If I would have spoken up, I would have been accused of showing off and attempting to make someone look like an idiot. Apparently there is no greater offense than proving an idiot is an idiot. We live in a pretty sad state when those informed are afraid to speak out lest they offend the sensibilities of the ignorant.
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The spiritual works of mercy are out of style. Try admonishing sinners. (That one was probably never in style.)
In other news, I am often startled by the level of ignorance on all kinds of issues. Our hyperliterate culture means there is a lot more information out there, but it doesn’t teach people how to distinguish legit info from illegit. The stuff people on public transit and Facebook (to name just two places I encounter public opinion) believe about religion, aliens and international politics (to choose three topics almost at random) makes me suspect the apocalypse is near.
lol. Most definitely.
Ignorance is bliss until it isn’t.
I have always found it odd that discussing religion and politics is not “polite conversation”. If there are any two things that can legitimately claim to be the meaning of life, it is these. The prohibition to discuss them, then, ensures that all human relationships will be crippled by unserious superficiality, and true friendship will be stopped at its source.
“Never has there been so much knowledge and so little truth.” Fulton J. Sheen
M.Z.:
I ‘get’ your final paragraph only if you pull off such prophetic denunciation without inferring that you own the truth. Or that yours is the only legitimate position on contended issues. It is one thing to challenge the blatant racist but quite another to denounce someone for preferring Republican to Democratic tax policy.
I take your point if you set folks straight without humiliating them or expressing contempt for their lived reality, however jarringly dissonant from your own. Tone matters. The impulse to expose the ‘idiot’ ought, perhaps, to give one pause. Could it be that one’s own views aren’t air tight?
All the better if you are able to distinguish between the ‘unenlightened’ one’s core beliefs, with which you might make common cause, and the tribal casings of these beliefs, with which you take great umbrage. On holidays, particularly, people prefer to let their hair down rather than walk on eggs. Harsh formulations result. Sometimes cutting slack is the wiser course.
But best of all, I endorse your interventions if you adopt a tone of genuine curiosity about the other’s beliefs and their provenance. It is perilous to assume there is little to learn and much to deconstruct in worldviews dramatically dissimilar from one’s own.
I find it impossible to set folks straight without violating one or more of these maxims. Consequently I attempt…but often fail…to stay away from politics and religion on holidays.
Thankfully there was nothing racist.
This was at the level of the deficit could be resolved if we just eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse. To make something up, the claims would be similar to believing that WWII would have ended sooner if we wouldn’t have had to fight China.
This was at the level of the deficit could be resolved if we just eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse.
Well, I remember Obama implying this was the case and claiming he would go through the budget line by line. Now, anyone with any sophistication knows he was demagoging, but there seems to be a bit of a vicious cycle with politicians telling the comforting lies people want to hear and people then relying on the resulting fictions. Obama campaigned on economic platform of) Increasing domestic entitlements; 2) Decreasing or maintaining taxes; 3) Reducing the deficit. The math doesn’t work. I would not dream of suggesting Obama was unique in this regard – this is what almost all politicians do and did the same thing. It’s just odd that we criticize people for believing what politicians are telling them rather than criticizing the politicians for lying.
I wouldn’t be shocked if you could find a direct instance of pandering. Thankfully some of the media has stopped treated the answer of eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse as a serious response. Unfortunately, the shows that seriously address policy don’t have high ratings, so they are often relegated to point people or when the head people come on they attempt to not embarrass the head people or appear to be “unfair” by probing too deeply. (Both Gibson and Couric were maligned as too interviewers for embarrassing Sarah Palin. Now Sarah Palin won’t do any serious interviews.) While I do think the media have a professional ethic that they should follow regardless of ratings, they have legitimate objections when they claim the American people don’t want serious news.
Where these discussions at family/friend gatherings so often get off track is the issue of respect for one another. That is, respect of others’ rights to hold opinions other than one’s own, even if one considers those opinions to be ill-formed. And of course that is a two-way street.