Re: "liberal media"

From: Samantha (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 02:03:46 MDT

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    On Wednesday 14 May 2003 07:42 am, Charles Hixson wrote:

    > An example of this was the recent invasion of Ira?. (I can never
    > keep those two straight.) Before the decision was framed as a
    > binary choice there were many views. After it was framed, the
    > viewpoints tended to reduce, eventually those with viewpoints other
    > than Passifist/Militarist began to be ridiculed.

    I don't believe it was ever reduced to that extreme extent. Voices
    on both sides could not easily be so pigeon-holed. I didn't oppose
    the invasion on grounds of pacifism but on ground that it was an
    unjustified, dangerous, costly and highly destabilizing thing to do.

    > This is normal primate politics, and one shouldn't expect anything
    > different. The improvement is that this discussion didn't
    > physically injure anyone.
    >
    > If you really want to get away from this, you need to insist that
    > choices not be phrased in a binary fashion. There's nothing
    > intrinsically wrong with binary choices, but people seem to have
    > certain mechanisms that get turned on when they appear. If there
    > aren't at least four major choices (meaning ALL views are in a
    > substantial minority), then you need to expect the "dominant group"
    > mentality to emerge...which tends to put an end to rational
    > argument on any of the features which are dogma to the dominant
    > group. A nice thing about mailing lists is that one has an easy
    > chance to observe this in a non-costly environment.

    Some decisions are binary on at least there surface. Should we
    invade/have invaded Iraq? Yes or No? Why is a much more complex
    question to ask and answer. I don't think it is a manner of the
    number of choices but of the quality of the thinking and explanations
    involved and most importantly of keeping enough respect/civility to
    listen to one another.

    I don't get the bit about needing to adopt an agenda/platform to back
    one's decision on a question. I do not do so but only attempt to
    choose among alternatives with what information, thinking and values
    I can manage to bring to bear. Perhaps I am naive to assume this is
    true of most people here.

    - samantha



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