Journal Cujo's Journal: I am resplendent in divergence 3
I'm saddened to see such bile and toxic nastiness in American political life. Folks aren't just passionate, but are completely given over to despising and disrespecting the opposition, and that seems to be mostly what it's all about.
Maybe it's always been this way, and I'm just now noticing it. Frank Zappa, a musician I admire greatly, was given to calling people "Nazis." Artistic license, or something we could do without?
Unfortunately, we have a political system that forces us along a divide that shouldn't be there. I regard the two party system as a major culprit, and those who have a vested interest in its contiuance to be the Problem People.
As for me, I don't want to support every policy of the Bush administration, but that doesn't mean I can support an even more aggressively statist agenda either.
This week's music: Time Out - one of the three or four Jazz albums (along with Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme and maybe Mingus Ah Um) almost everyone owns. in spite of its popularity, I enjoy it - it's kind of like a Jazz Revolver. Also, Eno's Nerve Net and Zorn's Masada Guitars.
American political life (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that the impersonal nature of political discussion on the Internet makes it more combative and hateful than it has been in the past.
True political discussion on the Internet is impossible. You can either preach to the choir or have the equivalent of a playground scuffle - complete with the escalating "nuh-uh", "uh-huh", "nuh-UH", "uh-HUH" arguments of children. No one is ever convinced by arguments opposite what they know to
Re:American political life (Score:2)
I must believe, however, that it is worth making good arguments in public. Calling someone an idiot is not worth the bandwidth.
Perhaps the old school approach is best - if you have one good idea, publish it at least 5 times.
This begs the question, what is a good argument? One could write whole books on this, and people have. To sum up, it's really hard to put one together, and is not "based on" logic, but makes use of high-integrity reasoning. Also, a good argument is not "based on facts" - that's all
It's probably always been that way. (Score:1)
I'm sure that it's always been that way to some degree. People have been vile throughout various time periods. In other time periods, they have been more respectful.
It is something that we could do without. People should be precise in their accusations. Calling someone a Nazi is quite an exaggeration for almost anybody