In a fine comment on my recent post Hillary Clinton, the Blogleft, and Groupthink, mrboma said
This got me to thinking.
It gave me a BIG “Hmmmmmm…!!!” moment.
And I replied.
As is often the case with me, the reply grew.
I now submit it as a post.
Read on.
Fragmented groupthink?
Not such an oxymoron, if you think about it. In fact, it perfectly describes one of the basic faults of left blogworld as represented by dKos. The groupthink is so solidly in favor of what it considers diversity of opinion that it distrusts ANY large or general agreements, and there are literally hundreds of posters there who can be counted on attacking such agreements.
Obsessive, compulsive argumentation.
In fact, that idea could very well be extended to explain the relative failures of the left and/or ANY attempts at “the new” in all of human history.
Conservative, centrist human movements are much more agreeable among themselves than are radical ones.
We literally argue ourselves into failure.
Fragmented groupthink.
An interesting idea.
Thanks.
Also…you say:
“Diaries like yours that help people see when their opinions are running away from the facts would never be tolerated on the right.”
The fact is, “diaries like mine” have been BARELY tolerated on the left. My year and a half of blogging has been an ongoing series of educational surprises to this 35+ years out of the loop radical. I stepped away from politics…indeed, away from MUCH of the mainstream white American culture…in the late ’60s/early ’70s. I was simply too absorbed in mastering a particular craft/art/call it what you will to GIVE much of a damn about a culture dominated by fools like Nixon, Reagan and their Bushbaby progeny. I remember walking down a Greenwich Village side street the night after Nixon completely crushed George McGovern in 1972 and feeling something literally break in my being. Here I was involved in the most American of all arts…jazz…and the America from which it sprang had just chosen the dark side in a a perfectly clear competition between darkness and light.
So I left the culture. I was in it but not of it. Didn’t actually think much about it one way or another, except in terms of personal survival. I looked in many other directions instead.
It wasn’t really until Butch II’s selection in 2000 that it began to dawn on me that the idea of “personal survival” was getting to a point where I had to either leave the country or start to fight this evil myself in whatever ways I could. And it wasn’t until 9/11 and the ensuing Iraq invasion that I TRULY realized the extent of the danger. That it literally would make no difference WHERE on this good green earth I moved as long as these people were in power because they were going to keep ramping up the stakes until we had a true world war.
A NUCLEAR war. Those other “world wars?” Sorry, baby. In 9/10ths of the world, there almost WAS no “war.” No shooting, anyway. No bloody death. But THESE people?
THIS version of the Nova Gang?
They are threatening to take the whole thing down.
You say that you think consensus is “inevitable and necessary”.
I agree about the “necessary” part, if we are to survive on this planet. On the evidence however, I am not so sure about the “inevitable” idea.
We shall see.
We shall VERY SOON see.
The 2006 election will be the harbinger of things to come. The left…the blogleft, anyway…is presently getting all het up about “the coming victory”. There are apparently perfectly rational people on the blogs talking about taking over BOTH houses of Congress in November, about a Democratic landslide, about a mandate for change, about impeachment, about Happy Times Are Here Again and a chicken in every gas tank, etc.
We shall see.
These are the same people who have started crowing every time some piece of damaging news about the criminals in power has surfaced over the past couple of years. The Downing St. Papers, Guckert/Gannon, Enron, Katrina, the whole Fitzgerald investigation, etc. etc. etc.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
And every time BushCo has Teflon Donned itself right out of trouble.
So…we shall see.
On the evidence if what I have seen and personally experienced on left blogworld…we have a long way to go before we can deal with these BushCo people effectively.
A LONG way.
Fragmented groupthink?
Yup.
That just about perfectly sums it up.
We shall see.
If we do not hang together we shall most certainly burn apart.
Let us pray.
AG
