Editor's note: This is one of two columns discussing the state of the country's oft-partisan political discourse. Click here to view the other column.
One of today’s popular pastimes seems to be found in endlessly writing condemnations of the lack of tolerance and compromise in our culture. Columnists across the nation incessantly moan over partisan politics and warring fringe groups, yearning for some better day when everyone can just get along, make some reforms and improve the world. Unfortunately, such a world is currently impossible, and will remain so for some time.
It is certainly not difficult to see why; just think about the issues we are fighting over, and you will see that many of them have two properties: there is inherently no acceptable compromise, and they are supremely important, both theoretically and practically.
Perhaps you will disagree on this, and insist that a compromise is always reachable if people want it enough. This is simply not the case. In order to have compromise, there must be a middle ground. If we have a house, and I want it 80 degrees and you want it 76 degrees, then we can have a heated debate, assign it to a committee, listen to our advisers, and finally set it to 78 degrees. But if I want to smoke in the house and you have severe allergies, can there be compromise? Is there something in between “yes” and “no” when “maybe” and “sometimes” are impossible? Not unless you’re Hegel. Well, maybe we can just be nice, and I won’t smoke in the house, and you won’t get mad when I smoke on the porch. Which brings us to our next point.
Our issues are too important to ignore, or to patch over with some phony solution. If you want to kill me, and I want to stay alive, we probably aren’t going to find anything that pleases both of us enough to stop arguing. Maybe you think the issues aren’t that big, and everything is just exaggerated for political purposes. In that case, here is a refresher.
Government healthcare: Lovers of Red Russia trying to inflict some new, bloated and inept bureaucracy on the taxpayers are in a crusade against the pernicious insurance companies and hospitals who bankrupt the nation and refuse treatment to the poor.
Global warming: Environmentalist freaks who hate civilization battle with greedy, ignorant corporate fat cats and other enemies of the planet.
Affirmative action: Racists who hate to see minorities succeed denounce racists who assume minorities cannot succeed.
And, lest we forget the biggest one:
Abortion: Bloody baby-killers are under attack from right-wing terrorists who hate women.
The words chosen are certainly inflammatory, but, you must admit, they are a much more accurate representation of how strongly many people think about these issues, and how much more important they are in themselves, than the language that we like to use in polite company suggests. We love to talk about seeing things from the perspectives of others, but here it will not help. There is not sufficient space to go into detail, but these differing viewpoints stem from fundamentally distinct and entirely incompatible philosophies. Compounding the problem, there are not just two philosophies, but innumerable multitudes, and they are often firmly held but not consciously formulated, making an argument on that level - the only level where any progress can be made - nearly impossible.
Therefore, for the foreseeable future, we will continue to hold irreconcilable positions which will continue to make us angry at each other and fill us with wonder that the opposition could be so maddeningly obstinate in their wrong opinions. Depressing thoughts. But if you need some encouragement, just consider another time we were divided like this, and how we overcame those divisions. Like 1861.
Gerard Keiser is a classical languages sophomore.
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LauraGibbs 2 years, 9 months ago
This is a disappointingly superficial commentary on a very serious problem for our society. Since the author is a classical languages major, I'll pose a question in Latin: CUI BONO?
Instead of assuming that all this divisiveness is somehow the product of spontaneous human feeling, as the author seems to do in this editorial, it's useful to ask just WHOSE INTERESTS are being served by these partisan politics, and how those interests provide a strong motivation for them to manipulate people - through fear, propaganda, and outright lies - into adopting positions that are hardly spontaneous.
Farhad Manjoo's recent book, True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-fact Society, has much of interest to say on this topic - http://books.google.com/books?id=VdDykSc7sbcC - which I think deserves a more thorough treatment than the passive acceptance of the situation endorsed by this editorial.