The other day I went to see “An Inconvenient Truth,” which turned out to be surprisingly moving. I was stunned when the form Veep discussed the disparity between the consensus of the academic community and its portrayal in the media. In a sample of 10% of the published material on global warming in academic journals, there was no dissent whatsoever from the consensus that it was occurring, while a similar sample of the media had 53% offering dissenting accounts.
Today I logged on to Brad Delong’s site and found this depressing post. Add it to the shoddy reporting that went into the TNR-DailyKos dust up, and you really have a hard time avoiding the conclusion that the crisis of political discourse in our country has less to due with our elected officials and those that elect them, and a lot more to do those that cover them.
Why does it seem that professionals in this country–with the significant exception of the academic community (who could do a lot better job, btw, of conveying their views to a public that desparately needs them)–why have professionals become so lazy and indifferent to the consequences of their words and actions?
The idea that modern liberal society was tending toward mediocrity and irresponsibility goes back Kant and traces its way through de Tocqueville, John Struart Mill, and Max Weber. C. Wright Mills who essentially founded the New Left in late 50’s commented on the growing intellectual laziness and equivocation of the Cold War era in his famous “Letter to the New Left.” He wrote:
Its sophistication is one of tone rather than of ideas; in it, the New Yorker style of reportage has become politically triumphant. The disclosure of fact — set forth in a bright-faced or in a dead-pan manner — is the rule. The facts are duly weighed, carefully balanced, always hedged. Their power to outrage, their power to truly enlighten in a political way; their power to aid decision, even their power to clarify some situation — all that is blunted or destroyed.
So reasoning collapses into reasonableness. By the more naïve and snobbish celebrants of complacency, arguments and facts of a displeasing kind are simply ignored; by the more knowing, they are duly recognized, but they are neither connected with one another not related to any general view. Acknowledged in a scattered way, they are never put together: to do so is to risk being called, curiously enough, “one-sided.”
“So reason collapses into reasonableness.” That’s the sad truth of our times. A formula has emerged for reporting which has made the necessity for reporters to wield their rational faculties in order to draw accurate assessments of the relative merits and worthiness of political and intellectual viewpoints essentially irrelevant. Instead of using their reason to produce accurate stories which in all likelihood could seem “one-sided” to certain interested groups, the media has adopted a policy of faux-reasonableness, giving equal weight to all sides if possible so as not to offend anyone.
Is there a solution to this mess? Perhaps. But its will be a lot harder to accomplish I think most of us on the Left imagine. What’s required is for Liberals to once again return to their old position in society of seeking to truly educate and persuade society–something we seem to have given up on, and instead adopting emotional mass appeals traditionally used by the Right–with predictable results. Perhaps, then, the first step will be in realizing that the laziness in our political discourse began with us.
