Friday, October 15, 2004
a blog post
So I'm at the Cronkite Awards luncheon Thursday, and ASU President Michael Crow gives a speech introducing Walter Cronkite, who will then introduce this years winner, Charles Osgood. Crow raves about the intelligent discourse on campus this week, especially the day of the debate, something, he says, people who'd worked at the University for years said they'd never seen. He prattles on about other stuff as well, but I'm skipping ahead to the comments of this year's winner.
Osgood recites some beautiful reporting in the form of rhymned verse, for which he's reknown, and admonishes journalists to be wary of profit-driven news. Then he laments the state of intelligent political discourse in the country today.
There isn't any, or it's severely lacking, he says. People merely launch ad hominem attacks tearing down their opponent. Exhibit A: on campus Wednesday, opposing groups mindlessly chanted "Ke-rry" and "Four more years" till their
throats grew hoarse. Exhibit B: The posters people hand made were, shall we say, simplistic: from "Lick Dick and Bush in 2004" to "Kerry ducks the issues."
So much for intelligent discourse.
Sure there were a few people on the fringes -- and fringes is key here -- of the hypnotized political cult-mongers actually engaging in a free exchange of ideas, but they soon degenerated into screaming matches as well.
The way I see it this all has more to do with a lack of political and historical education than anything else. Very quickly people from both parties run out of arguments to regurgitate and stats to spew forth, and they resort to yelling.
It's frutrating, isn't it, when your opponent keeps repeating the same thing over and over, and then you find yourself doing the same? I guess the thinking goes, if I repeat myself often enough, hammering my own words into my own head, maybe I'll never have to suffer the uncertainty and, ew, intellectual strain, of considering alternate hypotheses.
But wait. I'm being too harsh. You know they're just copying what they saw on Crossfire.
--ilan brat
Osgood recites some beautiful reporting in the form of rhymned verse, for which he's reknown, and admonishes journalists to be wary of profit-driven news. Then he laments the state of intelligent political discourse in the country today.
There isn't any, or it's severely lacking, he says. People merely launch ad hominem attacks tearing down their opponent. Exhibit A: on campus Wednesday, opposing groups mindlessly chanted "Ke-rry" and "Four more years" till their
throats grew hoarse. Exhibit B: The posters people hand made were, shall we say, simplistic: from "Lick Dick and Bush in 2004" to "Kerry ducks the issues."
So much for intelligent discourse.
Sure there were a few people on the fringes -- and fringes is key here -- of the hypnotized political cult-mongers actually engaging in a free exchange of ideas, but they soon degenerated into screaming matches as well.
The way I see it this all has more to do with a lack of political and historical education than anything else. Very quickly people from both parties run out of arguments to regurgitate and stats to spew forth, and they resort to yelling.
It's frutrating, isn't it, when your opponent keeps repeating the same thing over and over, and then you find yourself doing the same? I guess the thinking goes, if I repeat myself often enough, hammering my own words into my own head, maybe I'll never have to suffer the uncertainty and, ew, intellectual strain, of considering alternate hypotheses.
But wait. I'm being too harsh. You know they're just copying what they saw on Crossfire.
--ilan brat
