~ BANNED IN EUROPE! ~
| My Webpage
| |
"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, November 12, 2004
Good Grief!
For whatever reason, I was really struck by last week's TNR cover:
Dispair over the loss of the singularly uninspiring John Kerry to George Bush? At minimum, I agree with Martin Peretz - a movement that puts so much of its hopes in a vessel that they knew was manifestly flawed perhaps shouldn't get so distraught over his loss. But. . .they did. They aren't foreigners, they're fellow Americans. A lot of us on "our side" of the divide were (also) talking about the great stakes of this election. I know I was, and I still sincerely believe that it was one of the more important elections of our time. Lets say you held that belief, but came down on the other side of the divide, how might you feel? How might we have felt if a man we believed was not suited to take on the challenges we face won the Election, with so much at stake?
It's easy to lampoon the often hyperbolic reaction of the Left and of Liberals (they are not identical) to the election. It's easy to see dangerous tendencies in their reaction, as I did, when it comes to their tendency to dismiss (and thus delegitimize) disagreement with them as stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, or the like. It's important to identify such attitudes, and argue against them and the dangers they pose. I certainly do not feel it is appropriate to characterize my vote as one cast out of ignorance, stupidity, or selfishness. It may have been misguided (that remains to be seen), but it was based on a lot of knowledge of what is going on in the world, and my opinion about what would be the best policies for our country to pursue, in all our interests, and who was best suited to carry it forward.
I believe that those who voted for the other side were wrong, in that I don't share their conclusions, and often not even their world-view (when it comes to Liberalism and the programs they advocate). But the young lady in that picture obviously cares about something. One can surmise it's the future of the country. She feels as deeply as I would if the shoe were on the other foot that the wrong decision was made in the election.
In the end all the talk about what is wrong about the other side doesn't help keep us together as Americans. There is talk, satirical and otherwise, of secession. Obviously it's not serious - not right now. But the divisions in the country are real, and are dangerous. I certainly don't agree that it's all our side's fault, nor do I believe that the means of resolving the divide is to let the Wookie win. I've discussed passive-agressive methods of delegitimizing dissent in the guise of "consensus" and "not being divisive" before, where such mantras are invoked to compel acceptance of one side's policies and render disagreement unacceptable.
That's not a solution. But we do need to find some way to focus more on what we share as Americans rather than on our differences. Even if those commonalties are seemingly banal. We need to at least agree that we all care about the Country's future. We're bound together by a lot of things - something that the "secessionists" Kerry voters who might otherwise talk about interdependence should agree with, if they weren't in such despair.
One of the reasons I posted on winning with dignity and not "rubbing it in" or otherwise being obnoxious about "our" victory, even in the face of abuse by "their side", was because of this. We need less rancor, not more. This does not mean our differences of opinion on public policy aren't real. It's just that we shouldn't cross swords over them, or tear the country apart over them.
So I was thinking the other day (yah, it still happens, from time to time), pondering after a visit to our Commander's house, where I got to pet her dog, and I came up with this axiom:
No place where they don't let you have a dog can ever be called home
That doesn't mean you have to have a dog for it to be home (though it certainly helps). But if they (whoever "they" may be) won't allow you to have a dog, then it's not home.
So that rules out, among other places, the barracks. It can never be home. No Dogs Allowed.
I feel exactly the same. But there's a silver lining here: these "Trial of the Century" things are a dime a dozen nowdays, and I'm sure there'll be another one soon that we'll be able to use to tell us "Nothing's Happening".
Of course, on a more serious note, there's always something more serious to report. Obsessive coverage of such detritus, because it's cheap and picks up the same audience of channel-surfing trial-gazers every time, crowds out coverage of real news, that is always going on. The news media is always blaming their audience for stuff like this, but it's really their own indolence.
