And therein lies the rub, as Bill once wrote. We can't and don't know what's right, because we can no longer agree. And we can't agree for the simple reason that we can't talk with one another anymore. We love talking at others, but there's as good as no more talking to. We can't discuss and debate anymore, because we no longer acknowledge that the other person has anything worth listening to. Everybody's entitled to their opinion, and makes none of them right, and none of them wrong. Everybody has one, and those folks who agree with mine are the good guys and everyone else is a bad guy. Isn't that how it works?
If we're honest, that's precisely how it works. When I was growing up – and I realize that was a long time ago – we thought that opinions were the result of thinking, not a replacement for it. But that's changed. I'll give Fox News one thing: they call themselves a news channel but they admit they aren't one; they have clearly defined hours when they broadcast news and everything else is opinion. No, the vast majority of their listeners/watchers/fans don't know the difference, but at least they have made it known.
You can't argue with opinions. They aren't based on anything. They are merely individual (or prescribed) interpretations of a personal selection of facts. We still use words like "truth" and "justice", but they don't really mean anything. "Truth" has come to mean "agrees with me"; "justice" more or less means "got what I think s/he deserved". And that's it. Our entire social and political debate has been reduced to little more than he-said-she-said. I find that just a little more than sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment