Peggy Noonan has a good grip on the modus operandi of how self-righteous, intended-to-be divisive personal attitudes, and the oft-believed-as-truth personal opinions self-satisfyingly verbalized from them, are fed and enabled:
"Americans have always loved conspiracies, it's in our DNA. When I was a kid it was the CIA killed JFK, Dwight Eisenhower is a communist, fluoride in the water is a plot. In our time this tendency has been magnified and weaponized by the internet, where there's always a portal to provide you proof."
"Part of it is American orneriness--people enjoy picking a fight, holding a grudge, being the only person who really gets what's going on. Part of it is the sheer cussed fun of being obstinate. Some of it is committed and sincere--an ineradicable belief that established powers like to pull the wool over our eyes, a belief made more stubborn because sometimes they do."
Noonan also adds,
"...mainstream media has changed its nature" and become "openly activist...This too contributed to polarization."
The solution she proposes, when asked what could be done, sounds almost quaint:
"The only thing I could think of to help was keeping lines of communication up and the conversation going."
A tall order when, as she mentioned, people actually seem to enjoy complaining to the level that they tend, as I see it, to perceive their profuse and constant commentary as an art--an art they pride themselves on being quite good at.
I posit an alternative solution, one I can't help understanding as being necessary for Noonan's "keeping the lines of communication up and the conversation going" in a more constructive manner.
And that is for attitudes and motivations toward one another to change from a tribalist "us vs. them" to one of respectful civility, surrendering the needy groveling for affirmation through contrariness and "being right."
The solution also must surely entail the end to thinking the worst of people who hold a differing viewpoint, or who simply refuse to join in and agree.
A rather tall order indeed.
copyright Barb Harwood
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