“Think Coulter. Or Limbaugh. Or Olbermann? Or any of the pop conservatives, or jelly bean liberals who spout exactly what their audience expects - exactly what they want to hear. No deviation is possible without a fall from grace. No independent thinking allowed lest it contaminate the masses they reach and threaten their very livelihood.”

Really? You think that none of these individuals ever mulls over their ideas? That they are all driven by money and power and thus would never deviate from their initial conclusions? That they never confer with others that have a different take on events or ideas? This author must have psychic powers that rival Cleo mon.

The fact remains that certain ideas become paramount in our existance. They are formed early in our development (from conciousness to our early 20s perhaps, later for some people) and change little. I’m sure psychologists have a term for it but it escapes me. Core values perhaps. Whatever the term they are the general values that we gather around. Values such as the importance of life. For ourselves, human life in particular. And perhaps human life can be defined even further along racial, ethnic, class or religious lines (see National Socialism and Soviet Stalinism). After that we make intellectual constructs in order to maintain these values. Is life further affirmed by a collectivist or individualist approach? Is life further affirmed by mysticism or rationalism? Are certain races higher forms of life and more deserving? Here is where it gets difficult because now we must confer and interact with others. Others that may not share the core values and may rise in opposition.

Life is not always a debate club. I wish it was. The Nazis weren’t interested in debate. The free West couldn’t sit down at a debate table and mull over the intellectual aspects of Nazism with their counterparts. Why? Because the Nazis held core values that were so far removed from our own that compromise was impossible. What happens when an unstoppable force meets and unmovable object. Conflict of the non intellectual sort.

The important truth is that at a certain point nothing really new is being injected into the debate. The intellectual points have been mulled over and conclusions drawn regarding policy. The only thing that remains is to react to events and seek to position our own values in the best possible position. Many involved retain the responsiblity to modify their positions through the introduction of new data but this process will be slow and tedious. The intellectual base of our world did not evolve into its current form overnight and it won’t be altered overnight. Individuals that care about ideas will continue to bring in new sources of information which will either confirm or deny their current conclusions or perhaps take them in an entirely new direction.

Because Rush champions rugged individualism on a daily basis and doesn’t convert to a Paul Krugman outlook doesn’t mean that Rush has rejected the arena of ideas. It means that he believes that the battle at this point is over in terms of ideas until a new combatant enters the fray with something new to modify his outlook. Such a combatant may not alter Rush’s outlook dramatically. But Rush, Hannity, Coulter and even the editorial board of the NYT’s won’t shut out opposition. They will battle hard and perhaps be slowly pressed into a corner where they will find themselves in need of idea adjustment. The change won’t be radical or sudden. Don’t expect such a thing. But neither should one assume that no intellectual discourse is taking place.

Some people are as this article describes though. Anti-intellectual cynics that have in fact sold out genuine debate for the pursuit of money and power. Evaluate the large voices in our society as individuals and not simply because they seem to be larger and louder than others.

He delivered a blistering defense of a topic he felt strongly about. It was as good as anything you’d read in the (then) current discourse from that camp, but presented from the “anybody that doesn’t agree with what I say is either intentionally bigoted or a god-dammed idiot” perspective.

I had to explain to him that while his actual argument was solid, he failed utterly in his assigned goal. I told him that when trying to pursuade an audience, always assume that your listeners can be divided into three camps.

The first are already so deep in your camp that they will agree with whatever you say, no matter how wrong, as long as the ultimate conclusion is the one they already hold.

The second are so far in the opposition camp that if the Messiah himself (or herself) came down from the Heavens to endorse you they still wouldn’t listen.

The third are undecided.

To affect the discourse, you have to speak to the middle . . . and calling them evil and/or stupid isn’t the way to do it. If all you want is reinforcement you are right, then just talk to your reflection in the mirror. Convincing people that already agree with you is irrevelant to the outcome. Explaining your position to people that don’t agree is how debate has moved society forward for thousands of years. Preaching to the choir is fun but a waste of oxygen.

If current public discourse is any indication, in addition to being fun but pointless it is also apparently extremely profitable. When true debate and discourse stops, so does the society.

I hope America will get back on track.

You must exist for your principles to matter. This is always on my mind. You must see in black and white first to give the shades of gray an anchor.

Steve

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But how do you know you are right?

You are correct. Being “right” is not the same as being “honest.” It’s not so much the result but rather the journey itself that matters.

ed.

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These ideas have spread into all sorts of areas, and has had enormous effects in politics as well as all things media-related, including pundits of whatever variety.

Postmodernism is anti-rationalist and is the descendant of the counter-enlightenment concepts of guys like Nietzsche and Rousseau.

For all that, in many ways the pomos have a point. What we call rationalism is rooted in Western concepts of a lawful, orderly, materialist universe that behaves predictably once the rules are understood, so “other things being equal” scientific-method testing and debate is possible. But there are other ideas of how the universe works, including some that handle many situations better than pure rationalism.

value intellectual honesty, thoughtfulness, independence, and rigorous self examination

To paraphrase McLuhan maybe this Medium kills the message

I value those things - and that’s what counts.

ed.

Profound comment that I riffed on in another context over here..

http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2009/10/education-revolution-about-to-hit.html

Then you would wish for the UN IPCC to cease to exist. The UN IPCC in effect politicized the entire science on it, thereby turning gold into lead, scientifically speaking.

….and popularity and power.

An absolutely excellent piece, Rick, with some absolutely excellent links.

The problem is with the audience. The audience doesn’t want to be made uncomfortable. The audience doesn’t want to be challenged. The audience was to be soothed and reassured and comforted.

So they demand that their prejudices be confirmed. They demand that their every belief be ratified. This isn’t just a cable news phenomenon, it’s pervasive in our society.

We are at a point in history when our intellectual life has already been massively unsettled by technological advancement. The printing press brought the gospel to the common man and undercut the power of the priests. The camera brought pictures of war to the widows and raised questions about political and military leadership. Radio and then television and satellites allowed us to hear and see events far from our own lives and challenged the comforts of tribalism.

The internet combines all of those technologies with an always-there availability, and an individual programming capability that allows us to choose entirely for ourselves what we will or will not see. At this time in history critical thinking, a basic grounding in epistemology, and some moral foundation in the central value of truth, is absolutely vital.

Our schools don’t teach it, parents don’t demand it (rather the opposite)and our intelligentsia actively participates in subverting critical thinking and a devotion to truth, choosing instead to pander for money.