The echo chamber echoes back

After I blamed blogosphere lefties for leading me astray, the readers let me have it.

By Andrew Leonard

Nov 11, 2004 | Imagine my reaction last week, when, after writing a column in which I mused about the psychological dangers of hanging out in the self-reinforcing communities made possible by the Internet, I was immediately barraged by supportive e-mail from readers telling me that they had gone through exactly the same mental process as I had in the aftermath of Election Day 2004. Now, like me, they were swearing off their addiction to political blogs. Now, like me, they were determined to figure out how Republicans had managed to expand their majorities in the House and Senate, not to mention win the presidency by almost 4 million votes.

That's a bit too much irony even for my postmodern tastes. I was trying to smash my way through the walls of the echo chamber, and guess what? So was everybody else! And we all told each other how brilliant our self-analysis was, which made us feel good, and yada yada yada.

Sometimes you just have to log off.

But not quite yet, because I also received many e-mails taking issue with the final paragraph of my piece, in which I wrote:

"I really think I need to get out more, now. Perhaps if I'd spent less time at Daily Kos and more time talking to people who live in Alabama I'd have been less surprised by the election results. And perhaps I'd be better prepared to deal with them."

Quite a few people, expressing themselves in the gentle, restrained discourse so typical of online correspondence, took the opportunity to purge themselves of their post-election despair by pointing out what an idiot I must be to imagine that any amount of "reaching out" to homophobic, creation-science believing, towel-head hating red staters would in any way be therapeutic or otherwise helpful to the Democratic cause.

I am going to take the high road and forgive all those readers who misunderstood me. It's just remotely possible that after getting about two hours of restless sleep on Election Night, and then hastily writing a column in the midst of a dazed and confused fog early the following morning, I didn't express myself as I lucidly as I would like. So let me make myself perfectly clear. I am no cultural relativist: I think the voters who chose Bush to be their president made a huge mistake that will have dire results for all Americans. And I'm not trying to "reach out" -- I have very little confidence that any amount of engagement with hardcore anti-same-sex-marriage, anti-choice, pro-war-in-Iraq true believers will lead me to accept their point of view or lead them to accept mine.

I do believe, however, that there is a middle ground that can go either way, and that is where the battle for hearts and minds has to be fought. But that is precisely what it is: a battle, and I want my side to win. The point I was trying to make is that hanging out in online communities of identically minded partisans can have the not immediately obvious impact of decreasing one's fighting efficiency, by blinding oneself to the realities that need to be confronted.

Next Page: On the Internet, my personal spin doctor is always on call

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