Willing to learn

Maybe I've been a bit hard on my fellow country-people as of late. Oh, they're allegedly a rough-and-tumble sort, so they should be able to stand it, but perhaps I've been inaccurate in some of my assessments. After all, I was thinking about possible explanations for what I am witnessing ... and inductive approach, to be sure: look at the facts and phenomena being displayed and try to generate an explanation (theory) to account for them. However, having at least a modicum of respect for science, I agree that in light of new evidence, if necessary, the explanation needs to be modified accordingly.

Recently, I was re-reading a true American classic, Richard Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American Life. It was a Pulitzer winner, and I know, for many of you, simply "high-brow", but that's what the book is really all about: just how long that attitude has been part and parcel of what America is and what it stands for. At any rate, I ran across the following statement in a footnote:

Electoral appeals on both sides [of the presidential contest between Jackson and Adams] were lacking in truth and in delicacy [...].

Now, apart from the fact that a sentence like that makes the heart of a former student of language and literature beat just a little faster, it is even more remarkable for its relevance today. Doesn't that very well describe an attack ad? Lacking in truth and in delicacy? Perhaps we shouldn't be so kind to the below-the-belt exchanges that pass for campaigning for the office of what many bill as the "most powerful person on earth". Why am I the only one who is apparently shocked by the discrepancy between what it's supposed to be about and how everyone seems to be going about doing it?

My point is really that you can romanticize all you want about the good old days (that really weren't), but the uneducated, uncouth, simply ignorant adoration of brute force, deceit, and backhandedness exhibited then and being exhibited now strikes me as more than just inappropriate when we are talking about a decision that is going to affect the lives of (at least potentially) every single human being on this planet.

When the backwoodsmen of the frontier were squabbling amongst themselves, it was bad enough, but it really didn't matter all that much. In the world today, as globalized and as networked as we are, such squabbling is no longer isolated and provincial, it's a demonstration of real values that some folks hold dear.

The world is watching, but I'm not convinced they think it's a good show.