May 15, 2004
A Modest Proposal
Dear Blognoscenti,
My disclosure: I am an American; I am a small-l libertarian; I support the liberation of Iraq in particular and the war on international terror in general; I believe in the basic integrity and leadership of the Bush administration, while vehemently disagreeing with many of their largely domestic policies (and a whole host of generations-old policies that have been inherited by this administration and have ossified into unchallengeable dogma); I believe that Americans are smarter and more fair-minded than most imagine (certainly the politicians), and that they (we) crave the truth (the good and the bad, without the spin and damage control) about what's happening in our world today. And I believe wholeheartedly that Americans possess a gift that's seemingly unique in today's world: the ability to change one's mind when presented with a reasoned, persuasive, and well-substantiated argument.
I am an occasional blogger. As I have not devoted enough time to routinely updating it, I will not reveal its URL in this email (why throw an Instalanche when the caterers and the band are noshows?). However, I am a voracious blog reader, spending WAY too much time absorbing all that I can about the current events in the world. Of course these threads include UNSCAM (and all of the related mini-UNSCAMs), Iraq, Afghanistan, political hypocracy, political honesty, impeachments and courts martial, Lieberman and Kennedy, Ketchup and Dubya, yada yada yada yada yada. And then there's Big Media.
I have virtually ceased watching any Big Media newscasts and only read about them when the blogosphere deconstructs their reporting. Big Media as a blog topic is more than a peer amongst the threads listed above. It is a metathread, insinuating itself, and having far-reaching impact, into the delivery and discussion of every one of those threads.
Take UNSCAM (you truly could pick any other). You have seen UNSCAM blogging at www.rogerlsimon, www.instapundit.com, www.acepilots.com, www.nicedoggie.com, www.hughhewitt.com, and many, many, MANY other sites. Ask yourself this: how much of the blogging has been on HOW Big Media reports on UNSCAM? 30%? 50%? 75%? Clearly, it is a significant non-zero percentage, true for any thread you choose currently swirling around in the blogosphere.
Germane to Big Media reporting, one current blog thread is how we lost Vietnam even though we had just won a major (and perhaps decisive) battle, the Tet offensive. Why? Big Media's negative spin. Fast forward to the present: did we suffer a Marine defeat in Fallujah, or a diplomatic coup with the beginning of bilateral patrols? Time will help us answer that question. Big Media already knows the answer. Do we have an isolated group of undertrained and undisciplined prison guards at Abu Ghraib, or systemic moral rot and depravity in the whole American military chain of command? My answer is that it appears quite isolated, with plenty of culpability laid at the feet of immediate superiors who were derelict in their supervision of these stupid yahoos (and I hold on to the very unfortunate possibility that individual senior interrogators knew what was going as well). That's not Big Media's answer. Is Iraq a quagmire, another "Vietnam", or is it a mix of isolated theaters of fighting surrounded by thousands of community-level success stories. Stories about playgrounds, schools, clinics, hospitals, water treatment plants, sports centers, shops, and houses; stories whose actors are Americans, Brits, Poles, and the rest of the coalition working side-by-side with Iraqi men, women, and children, all of whom interact with each other as friends on a first name basis; stories where the Iraqis can learn, perhaps for the first time, that a story can have a happy ending when you hold the pen. Big Media's answer: "open wide, here comes the too too twain!"
To use Steven den Beste's term, the Aha! moment, my Aha! moment regarding Big Media is NOT that they have become increasingly liberal (and, yes, Anti-American) in their reporting, but that I have (as have many Americans) become increasingly aware of this bias. Blogs have GREATLY accelerated the epiphany.
By way of this long introduction, I am writing to you with A Modest Proposal: Eat your babies. Er, no. Wrong Proposal. Heh.
Here is my proposal: above, I have painted a portrait of who I am, and what set of principles guide me. You regular blog readers can guess the blogs I regularly visit and agree with. OK, so we agree. The choir agrees. Let's get more people in the choir. I have no doubt AT ALL that more people are joining the choir all the time. However, I see the influx as linear (as opposed to geometric; go to your high school math books if you do not understand). People stumbling onto this blog or that, following a link or two, seeing finally that they might not be crazy after all. Let's do this: pick a friend or relative, one who trusts you and likes you, one who regards themselves as informed, but one who thinks: the UN is the answer/Iraq is a quagmire/John Kerry has strong convictions/Democrats love America/the New York Times reports facts. Chances are if they believe any one of these they believe them all. Meet with them and ask if the two of you can have an ongoing email discussion about your competing world views. Promise that you will read every single thing they send (and really do it!). Have them promise you that they will do the same. Then, every time you read a blog article that strikes you as a "reasoned, persuasive, and well-substantiated argument", email the blog link. I would actually suspect that your editorial input is unnecessary, perhaps even counter productive. Just let the blog entry stand on its own merits. I would also refrain from emailing any generic blog URL with your insistence that "this is really a great blog; you gotta read it all". They probably won't do it. I would however email back an honest critique of whatever they send you (even and especially if you agree with parts of it!) to demonstrate that you are really attempting (and you really are) to understand their point of view. Above all, absolutely no meanness!
Do as I say and not as I do? Yesterday I had great conversation with Tom, my good friend and a very educated person (writer and college-level instructor). We had a discussion about Iraq and he and I trotted out largely the left view and the right view on the war: is it an occupation or a liberation? I will be the first to admit that he stated many positions for which I did not have a glib answer (I am rarely ever glib to begin with). We enthusiastically agreed to "get into" the other's mindset, and we exchanged with each other about half dozen blog URLs. There is something that does not work with this arrangement (and I only came up with my Proposal this morning). Those blog URLs that he gave me do not represent HIS thinking. He may not agree with whole swaths of what a particular blogger says. I certainly do not agree 100% with any blogger I have ever read. So this type of intercourse breaks down. But if Tom emails me only those links with which he concurs, I can really start to a) appreciate his world view, and b) modify my world view because I respect Tom's intellect. So I am going to approach Tom TODAY with my Modest Proposal. I suspect he'll agree enthusiastically.
To conclude: one's world view IS NECESSARILY imperfect. For anyone to claim otherwise is either knowingly dishonest or stupidly arrogant. Developing a cogent, consistent, and resilient world view is an incredibly daunting task. Many turn to the prevailing dogma (left, center, right, or even wrong) and stop thinking. If you're still reading this, I would guess that you are not one of those folks. I would also guess that some of those folks may exit their dogma house if invited by you to have an ongoing discussion about what's going on in this fascinating world of ours.
Compounding the difficulty of this task is (of course, in my opinion) Big Media. If you REALLY start to dig, you will see (again, in my opinion) not just the passive dishonesty of reporting only those facts which are technically not untrue or harping on one story and remaining silent on another. You will see (yes, yes, in my opinion) an Agenda Juggernaut, hammering away at what you should think, what you should feel, who you should love, and who you should hate. Let's hit the fast forward button on this Humpty Dumpty tale. After all, we know the ending.
Postscript: Copyright (c) 2004, me [rescinded]. If you deem this worthy of printing, posting, emailing, or otherwise transmitting in any way, you are free to do so, under one condition: you print, post, email, or transmit it in its entirety. Of course, there are plenty of bozos who will ignore this copyright notice and excerpt or edit my piece (with or without the intent to distort). I have one thing to say to you: I'm glad I don't see YOU in the mirror. You probably also think that NO ONE knows when YOU pee in the pool. Get it? May you live in interesting times.
Update: I sent this post as an email to 23 top right-leaning blogger with the above copyright notice. I am removing the restrictions, and I sent the following note to those bloggers:
Dear blogger,
I sent this email out to I believe 23 top right-leaning blogs. I have received one response, and to my knowledge, no one has posted it. The purpose for this current email is simple: I am officially removing the copyright restriction in the last paragraph. Why? To restrict excerpting is antithetical to blogging. I'm not sure why I added it in the first place other than I was (and am) proud of my little screed. It is posted on my blog (no, not invisiblepundit.com, but that is a catchy blogname) and will be found when it is found. Feel free to use, excerpt, or toss. Thank you, and keep up the very good work!