The Decline Of Modern Political Discourse
American political conversation, particularly in the mass media, has
significantly deteriorated in recent years in a number of ways. One of
the most disturbing of these is that it increasingly no longer deals
with the substance of politics but instead with group dynamics. The
purpose of far too many newspaper and magazine editorials is not to
convince the reader that a particular perspective is logically
or morally justified, but to convince them that it is “mainstream”. At
the same time its goal is not to persuade them that the alternative
perspective (and by extension those that represent it) are incorrect
but that they are “on the fringes” or “extreme”. In other words, the
objective of the article is to get its audience to conform to what it
depicts as “the popular view”.
The article asks them not to
think but to follow. The entire substance of the article is often merely
a play on group dynamics. The reader is politely informed of where he
or she had better situate themselves if they wish to avoid the status
of “outsider”. The tone of the article assumes that the reader is of
course already within the mainstream and among the ranks of
the “ acceptable ”; but to avoid any potential for confusion, clear
lines are drawn by the author for his benefit. Now the opinions
represented as the most popular view may not actually be so at all and
the claim may require a one sided or skewed set of statistics for
support. But that is not what is important for our purposes. What is
important is the thought process of the reader. And so what we have is
a model of journalism that trains its audience to be followers instead
of political thinkers.
Whereas open and rigorous discussion
of the substance of political issues leads to civility because I am
forced to respect the reason of my opponent, the avoidance of substance
and the exploitation of this group dynamics approach leads to
incivility . It teaches the reader to denounce and denigrate the holder
of a particular view rather than to engage their arguments.
