[Dean's World] Aziz P: straightjacketed

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Posted by Aziz P:
straightjacketed
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1185543444.shtml


   [1]Scott and I had a civil, pleasant email conversation about the
   atmosphere of political debate, and he mentioned that he blamed the
   media in part for the rancor. I disagree. I think its more that
   political debate has become stultified by straitjackets of thought
   rather than genuine inquiry. In other words, talking points and
   stereotype. This is needed in some part because of simple information
   overload; the political space has so much data in it that if we don't
   rely on some mental shortcuts, we will never be able to really move
   forward. But that lends itself to abuse as well.

   There are a number of right-wing frames that I fundamentally disagree
   with yet which are mainstream here at DW; likewise I am sure there are
   similar ones at liberal sites that pass under my radar. However, this
   acts as a deterrent to me in participation; the accusations of BDS
   that I attracted in previous posts were really a symptom of how deeply
   these frames are embedded in right-wing discourse; so much so that any
   challenge to them must be met with ferocious character assassination.

   An example, I think that the question of whether our occupation of
   Iraq is a net positive or a net negative for a. Iraq and b. US
   national security is simply a function of HOW the occupation is
   managed. Hence I critique the occupation and am tolerant of views that
   desire withdrawal because I recognize them as based on the opinion
   that the management is poor - leading to net negative effect. (I still
   am unsure whether I agree).

   This is unavoidably interpreted by a right-leaning audience (such as
   at DW) as wanting America to fail, to some sort of racism towards
   Iraqis, to Americaphobia, to irrational BDS. That's the gulf filled
   with broken shards of glass across which I and Ali and a few others
   have to pull ourselves. Frankly, Ali's aggressive approach is one I
   admire, because at least he makes no apologies for what he is doing:
   forcing people to question and think - and more importantly, defend.
   After all, my approach - humility, defensive - earned me zero benefit
   of the doubt. So why not respond in kind and go for the jugular?

   Now I understand that a rational conservative might look at what I
   typed above and say, "well, I will give you credit for being a
   rational liberal; the problem is not your thought process, but rather
   your data inputs. You are drawing wrong conclusions because you have
   bad information." and thus, blame the media. But the axiom that the
   "MSM" is out to sabotage America - or yes, even that the MSM has an
   inherent bias that tends to be critical of war and hostile to
   conservative thought - is again a right-wing stereotype/straightjacket
   of the type I describe above. (ironically liberals at dkos have an
   identical straitjacket, that the MSM is hostile to liberal thought and
   has inherent bias that supports war). I reject both because my
   rational observation is that neither is true. And in fact if you
   exclude all the pundit class, and look at the nuts and bolts reporting
   from both abroad and at home, its actually very good. NPR and PBS in
   particular are excellent. If anything I would say that the media has
   done a superb job of putting the facts as they are in front of us and
   I still very much trust and believe in the mechanism of journalism -
   editors, rules about sources, etc - because they are very much alive
   and performing.

   Journalism is like democracy. Its a shitty system but everything else
   is worse. And damn it, it works, but only if the environment is right.

   So no, I don't blame the media for the partisan divide. I think its
   more that we are overloaded. The only solution is Thoreau: simplify,
   simplify. And that's what i am doing.

References

   1. http://therazor.org/