Post by bluemaydie on Dec 9, 2009 14:59:28 GMT -5
I came up with a new theory today, and thought I'd run it up the flagpole over here.
My brother was lamenting the state of discourse lately--how it seems no one can discuss, but only insist shrilly. I see two reasons this might be so:
1) I blame our schools. I mean, really, I was taught nothing about weighing information or seeking the truth in high school (yes, I went to public school). Rather, I was taught to memorize facts without being able to use them. And I think I've seen too many people--on the Internet and elsewhere--whose idea of argument is to cling to facts without being interested in (or able to) interpret them.
2) But really, I think it's our ad absurdum times. We've been living with contradictions in tension for a couple of generations, and the contradictions and lapses in logic are finally coming to their extremes. We're hitting the point where we'll have to make a choice, but making a choice will mean making sacrifices, and that makes everyone defensive, because they've got so much to lose. So they fight tooth and nail over whether Tom and Katie or Brangelina is the awesomest thing ever.
Example: It seems to me that ever since, roughly, Woodstock, we've upheld personal autonomy and individuality as cardinal virtues. 45 years later, we're seeing the logical end products of those philosophies: the destruction of the family and the rise of euthanasia and utilitarianism. Now we've come to a point where we must either embrace the new (and say goodbye to marriage, family, and frankly, society as we know it), or we must reject the new and bid farewell to abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, and everything else the "culture wars" are being fought over. Either way, someone looses a whole lifestyle. Hence the shrillness and virulence of the arguments.
Am I off base here? And what do we do about it?
My brother was lamenting the state of discourse lately--how it seems no one can discuss, but only insist shrilly. I see two reasons this might be so:
1) I blame our schools. I mean, really, I was taught nothing about weighing information or seeking the truth in high school (yes, I went to public school). Rather, I was taught to memorize facts without being able to use them. And I think I've seen too many people--on the Internet and elsewhere--whose idea of argument is to cling to facts without being interested in (or able to) interpret them.
2) But really, I think it's our ad absurdum times. We've been living with contradictions in tension for a couple of generations, and the contradictions and lapses in logic are finally coming to their extremes. We're hitting the point where we'll have to make a choice, but making a choice will mean making sacrifices, and that makes everyone defensive, because they've got so much to lose. So they fight tooth and nail over whether Tom and Katie or Brangelina is the awesomest thing ever.
Example: It seems to me that ever since, roughly, Woodstock, we've upheld personal autonomy and individuality as cardinal virtues. 45 years later, we're seeing the logical end products of those philosophies: the destruction of the family and the rise of euthanasia and utilitarianism. Now we've come to a point where we must either embrace the new (and say goodbye to marriage, family, and frankly, society as we know it), or we must reject the new and bid farewell to abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, and everything else the "culture wars" are being fought over. Either way, someone looses a whole lifestyle. Hence the shrillness and virulence of the arguments.
Am I off base here? And what do we do about it?