The Closing of the American Mind

Yikes, softwarelaw has some real issues with reality (and sexuality). Too bad s/he wasn't able to stick to the topic!

Despite decreases in influence of the major media, I think newspapers still pretty much control perception of the public.

* how the media made us think we were losing the Iraq war in 2005. People who are close to Iraq knew otherwise.
* how the newspapers have been gaining acceptance of anal sodomy, equal the guise of 'equality'

Someday, we will look back and wonder did we ever let the newspapers promote such stupid ideas. But,, for now the newspapers still rule politics. Until the newspapers die, they will be the biggest influence over who is elected and who is not.

Even as someone fed up with the ineptness of the mainstream media, like most Americans after the Iraq WMD debacle, I'm amazed at the audacity of this article. We're told the extreme level of partisanship has nothing to do with Bush and Rove's political strategies- wholly unmentioned, nothing to do with the media's valuing bi-partisan 'compromises' over the actual facts, no not even Fox News which equates 'liberal' with traitor, it's the Internet's fault! Blogs rose to fill a need the media failed to address - choosing to report and reflect reality instead of this ridiculous notion that both sides are equally valid and a compromise is best. The only way to unite this country is to demand the common meeting place of both parties should be reality - by calling out conservative (or liberal) lies every time they occur - and having the guts to say that those who espouse them are, in fact, liars.

Maybe civic minded voters like me who once would never miss an election are just giving up. Because sometimes it doesn't seem to matter how much we weigh the issues or do due dilligence to be better informed voters, it's all out done by the hoards of voters who would rather vote for someone they'd 'Like to have a beer with' than is actually qualified to adequetly run a country.

Opening of the American Mind should be the name of the article. Mainstream media, which slants left, cannot control the groupthink in the masses no longer. Im sure the Daily Kos and Move On (not mentioned) will provide balance. Ignorant or the informed will be make the choice in 2008 - you decide which is which.. Enjoy your MTV, ESPN and XBox.

Perhaps the article should be called the "Opening of the American Mind." No reference to the Daily Kos or Move On in the article? Mainstream news, which slants left, cannot influence the whole of the country anymore with group think. Ignorant or Informed seemed to be the divisions - our country will decide in 2008 which is which. Enjoy your ESPN, Xbox and MTV.

Yes. Democracy replaces one or a few dictators with crowds of them. Communism is worse to be sure, but all government is based on force and force alone. Just because you get to vote for the group of thugs who will be brutalizing you doesn't make much difference.

I am one of the turned-off tuned-out crowd, at least when it comes to presidential elections. Because over the years I've seen that who is in the white house doesn't really matter. No president in the past oh-so-many years has done anything that brings in substantial change in how the nation goes about its business. Partly because they don't have the vision to bring about real change, partly because they don't have the power, and mostly because as a nation we really don't know what kind of change we want at a national level. We are much better in voicing our needs at the local level. I always vote in city and state elections. I vote in presidential elections if I have nothing better to do that day. Advisors to presidential campaigns do a rigorous "market reasearch" as much as any corporate wanting to introduce a new product. The fact that campaign promises provide ill-researched or impractical solutions to what are perceived are common problems reflect the confused state of the union. No one really knows what they want. Most of us would love someone else to take care of our problems.
For me, the states are where the action is. I couldn't care less who is the president. But I want to choose my alderman and my governor.

The first thing I have to say as a political junkie is the MEDIA is actually the main VILLAIN here. The PRESS foments and encourages controversy and confrontation TO SELL THEIR PUBLICATIONS. Cannot believe you do not see that. But then you are a member of that establishment and are probably in complete denial. I take professors??? word or Quote Studies Unquote with a grain of salt. They are members of the same establishment and want to GET PUBLISHED. They have the same mentality as the MEDIA. Now considering your elevation of the middle of the 20th century as an example of cooperation, the democrats had control of Congress for 40 years. The republicans didn???t have much choice in how things were run. All they could do was to try and slow things down and they were polite about it until 1994 when they had had enough. I think they have given up lately and turned into cowards because the MEDIA is so belligerent, relentless and acidic. Stats have shown that the MEDIA votes 80% democrat, so I think that proves my point. This is not an impression. This is fact. And since Fox News came along, the MSP, or drive-by media, as they are known in some circles, have done everything they can to destroy Fox. Isn???t that interesting? The MEDIA trying to destroy one of their own kind. That also tells me something.
Political junkies can find anything on the Internet. Yes, they can and I for one look at both political sides and I would bet many folks who are really trying to learn do the same thing. I read Maureen Dowd and I read Peggy Noonan. Now there???s a study in contrasts, particularly when talking about Ms. Clinton. I read Camille Paglia what wit! and Ann Coulter also witty. I also read Mickey Kaus and Hugh Hewlett. Both writers are intelligent, provocative, but gentlemen at the same time. I skip most of the blogs as I find them to be juvenile, as a rule.
However, in spite of your conclusion, I, for one, am glad fewer folks are voting and the reason I am glad is because what I???m realizing is that the people who should vote care about the country. They are the ones who bother to read and educate themselves on the issues. I don???t want people to vote because they should. What kind of sense does that make? I???m wondering if the Founding Fathers may have had the right idea about restricting the privilege of voting to property owners since they had committed and had an actual investment in the country and wanted to protect that investment.
The redstate, bluestate division is actually a picture of those who are invested in this country and those who are not. City dwellers have little or no idea of the amount of work those in the hinter lands produce in order to keep the cities running. They just go to the store and buy (or shop-lift yes, shop-lifting is increasing) what they want and think nothing of how the product got there.
So, do not despair, America will survive close-minded or not, some of us are still paying attent

The first thing I have to say???as a political junkie???is: the MEDIA is actually the main VILLAIN here. The PRESS foments and encourages controversy and confrontation TO SELL THEIR PUBLICATIONS!!! Can???t believe you don???t see that???but then, you are a member of that establishment and are probably in complete denial. I take professors??? word or ???Studies??? with a grain of salt; they???re members of the same establishment and want to GET PUBLISHED. They have the same mentality as the MEDIA.
Now???as far as your elevation of the middle of the 20th century as an example of cooperation: the democrats had control of Congress for 40 years???the republicans didn???t have much choice in how things were run. All they could do was to try and slow things down and they were polite about it until 1994 when they???d ???had enough???. I think they???ve given up lately; they???ve turned into cowards because the PRESS is so belligerent, relentless and acidic. Stats have shown that the PRESS votes 80% democrat, so I think that proves my point. This is not an ???impression???; this is fact. And since Fox News came along, the MSP, or ???drive-by??? media as they are known in some circles, have done everything they can to destroy Fox. Isn???t that interesting? The MEDIA trying to destroy one of their own kind. That also tells me something.
???Political junkies can find anything on the Internet???: yes, they can and I for one look at both political sides and I would bet many folks who are really trying to learn do the same thing. I read Maureen Dowd and I read Peggy Noonan. (Now there???s a study in contrasts, particularly when talking about Ms. Clinton.) I read Camille Paglia (what wit!) and Ann Coulter (also witty). I also read Mickey Kaus and Hugh Hewlett: both writers are intelligent, provocative, but gentlemen at the same time. I skip most of the blogs as I find them to be juvenile, as a rule.
However, in spite of your conclusion, I, for one, am glad fewer folks are voting and the reason I am glad is because what I???m realizing is that the people who do vote care about the country. They are the ones who bother to read and educate themselves on the issues. I don???t want people to ???just vote??? because they ???should???. What kind of sense does that make? I???m wondering if the Founding Fathers may have had the right idea about restricting the privilege of voting to property owners since they had committed and had an actual investment in the country and wanted to protect that investment.
The red-state, blue-state division is actually a picture of those who are invested in this country and those who are not. City dwellers have little or no idea of the amount of work those in the hinter lands produce in order to keep the cities running. They just go to the store and buy (or shop-lift???yes, shop-lifting is increasing) what they want and think nothing of how the product got there.
So, don???t despair, America will survive?

The real problem is not partisan discourse, as the author suggests, but the bland homogeneity that has settled over our nation. It has been on the rise since the ???50s, when a government monopoly on education gave us massive schools and a standardized curriculum that emphasizes trivialities. The partisans on both sides are not the cause of the lamentable state of public discourse. For all their opinion-mongering, they are at least calling on us to wake from our sleep and take on the issues of the day. The Big Three networks, about whom the author is so nostalgic, helped to lull us to sleep, squeezing out true diversity of opinion while giving us the false sensation that they were ???objective.??? And what of the author???s affinity for the Big Tents of the two political parties of decades ago? People used to complain that there was simply no difference between them. No, what we need are not two polite parties (look where that brought us!) but a greater variety of parties. Until we get over our misguided reverence for the two-party system we will get nowhere. Let a passionate diversity of opinion reign. As our Founding Fathers found, it will lead us toward common values, not away from them. And none of this can happen under the megalithic rule of a monopoly over our children???s education. It is anathema to true Jeffersonian discourse.

It would be a big step forward if the larger media outlets would actually attack hyper-partisanship and stop feeding it. A bi-partisan group of principled political leaders need to rein in both parties by threatening to brand the worst partisans of both parties with a Scarlet 'P' if they don't stop this nonsense. I think one of the greatest political reforms would be to require any presidential candidate to be ouf of any political office for 4 years before they could run for office.

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Until being a partisan political junkie is classifed as a dysfunctional addiction, I don't see much hope of increasing voter turnout. The average person thinks the leadership of both parties are nuts, and don't want either one in power. If the media would attack hyper-partisanship instead of feeding it, that would be a big step forward.

I think tha the partisanship is so strong because the stakes are so high. Depending up who is elected President the Supreme Court, for instance, can change philosopy and rights that once existed can evaporate be that Roe vs Wade or the 2nd Ammendment gun rights.

These are not seen by "particants" as small things. Until elections don't mean anything there are going to be rough times.

Sorry, but the author completely ignores the role played by the shift in values and morality in America and the mainstreaming of ant-Americanism. It was possible for politics to be more moderate when the vast majority of Americans (including what we sometimes call the "elites") shared the same values, lived by the same code of morality, and believed that, on balance, America was a force for good in the world. When those shared beliefs and values began to erode, so did the ability for moderation in politics to dominate. There is no shared vision of America and of what Americans should look and live and be like anymore. Perhaps talk radio and the internet have contributed to making the divide larger or more noticeable, but the divide has been growing since Vietnam (in which the media was not neutral, as the author would undoubtedly have us think) and the sexual revolution and the Great Society and Roe v. Wade.

Ecomaven: I wholeheartedly agree with your point on political segregation. I grew up in Jewish Los Angeles, knowing only liberals. I moved to Texas, meeting a wide range of conservatives. My family in L.A. seemingly can't quite grasp the mindset of the conservatives out here; at some level they just have no experience with an entire segment of the population that comes from vastly different beliefs. Hard to create compromise when each "side" believes that the other must be, in some respects, joking.

An excellent and insightful piece. Interested readers should check out Ronald Brownstein's book "The Second Civil War" that discusses hyperpartisanship. One other point to note is that the expansion of 24 hr news and the Internet, not to mention some contributing social factors, encourage the horse-race aspect of politics. Politicians get good press for "beating" the other guy (or gal). The sober realities of policy discussion and compromise have long given way (at least for many Americans) to the snippets and zingers of competitive politics.