"talking to ourselves" and why this blog is the way it is

susan jacobs over at the times has written an interesting article about the decline of respectful disagreement in everyday american discourse, and its possible causes and effects. basically, the article suggests that the cacophony of voices we have in a digital-cable-and-rss-feed society is now allowing us to insulate ourselves around information that validates our own opinions. we're cutting ourselves off enough from objective information that we can write our own narratives about controversial cultural opinions, and then form clans around those opinions.

"When I recently spoke about the militant parochialism of American intellectual life on a radio talk show, a caller responded by telling me that there was nothing new about Americans preferring to bask in the reflected glow of their own opinions. Talk radio and political blogs, in his view, are merely the modern equivalent of friends -- and haven't we always chosen friends who agree with us?"

that's true, for sure. plenty of us spend our time knocking bill o'reilly and his clan. i for one rail on my parents for watching lou dobbs, who has stoked their fears about illegal immigration and the clearly hypothetical north american union.

however, that's not to say that televised media is the sole offender. anyone who has read digg or - even worse - reddit has probably been subjected to these memes from time to time. for nearly a year, i was a card-carrying member of the ron paul revolution. i even bit the "bush set up 9/11" line for a few months (incidentally, though i don't think he had an active hand in it, nobody can say there aren't a few interesting unanswered questions about that day). media is so plentiful that we are allowed to choose information that suits us, rather than information that is available to everyone. it also has created an oversimplified, quickly-digested media. jacobs continues:

"A vast public laziness feeds the media's predilection today to distill news through polemicists of one stripe or another and to condense complex information into meaningless sound bites. On April 8, for example, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, testified before the Senate in hearings that lasted into the early evening. Although the hearings were on cable during the day, the networks offered no special programming in the evening, and newscasts were content with sound bites of McCain, Obama and Hillary Clinton questioning the general. Dueling presidential candidates were the whole story."

a society based on cultures absorbed in their own separate worldview is unacceptable. this is not a society i want to live in, and i think quite a few people agree with me.

we can blame it all we want on the media or any number of other causes, but the plain and simple truth is that it is up to us. it is in this spirit that we have all joined and set up the blog. "i can has freedoms" means that free speech is top priority. people of any political stripe are welcome. we only ask a couple things: express your points intelligently, and don't be an asshole. sound good?