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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
I'm supposed to chat people up who think I'm a godless feminazi? I think not. Readers respond to Andrew Leonard's "Trapped in the Echo Chamber."
Nov 4, 2004 | [Read the story.]
Let me get this straight: About half of America has spoken clearly and told me that I am a faggot-loving, race-mixing, overeducated, godless feminazi, and Andrew Leonard wants me to get out there and chat them up? What am I supposed to do on a conservative discussion board, post that I'm a Democrat and wait for them to start calling me names, paint a big target on myself and let them vent their righteous scorn on me? Don't tell me to engage in reasoned discussion with them -- here's a sample from one of the more polite posts today: "Don't go away sad. Just go away. On the upside, now Edwards can go back to his day job, playing Jack on 'Will & Grace.'" I'm supposed to go out of my way and explain to this person and his or her less-polite compatriots that my views are also American views? No thank you. I'm suffering enough right now without going out of my way to find people to gloat at me about how my dream of America is dead.
-- Jennifer McGee
On election night at a San Francisco bar, once a White Russian had calmed my anxious stomach, I asked a fellow TV-watcher if he knew anyone who had voted for Bush.
"Nope. And I'm from Michigan. I know folks there, here, in Arizona, Florida, Colorado, got family and friends everywhere, but they're all educated people. It's all about ignorance."
I told him my parents in Ohio had voted for Bush, and soon he was shouting at me. No matter how many times I said, "Yep, I agree. I'm on your side. I'm with you. I don't get it myself," he didn't even hear me.
But I was being just a bit disingenuous. I voted for Kerry, and I'm sad, and worried about the outcome. But after months of discussion with my folks, I had at least concluded that there were possibly one or two compelling reasons to reelect Bush -- that the other half of registered voters were probably not all insane, stupid, bigoted, evil and selfish. My mom and dad, after all, are nice, bright people who read.
That is, they read mostly conservative columnists (David Brooks, Daniel Pipes, et al.) and listen mostly to Republican rhetoric. Just like my liberal friends and I do on our side.
That, I think, is a big problem. It's not just that we in our bubbles end up shocked at the outcome of the election -- it's that we don't have thoughtful, intellectually honest discussions with people who think differently. The candidates don't, the pundits don't, the activists don't, and the voters don't. Instead, many of us dig in, use only facts that support our views, jump to conclusions without clear evidence, oversimplify, dismiss those who disagree, and then complain that democracy is in serious trouble.
But democracy depends, at least partly, on being able to listen and discuss with eyes, mind and heart wide open.
-- Mitch Neuger
You know, I live in Tennessee. Every day I talk to people in Tennessee. And I have absolutely no clue why we went for Bush in such eye-popping numbers. Forget it. Just forget it. You are not going to understand these people. And neither am I. It is not to understand. These people did not make rational judgments, and you are not going to get any insights into their minds that you would not get from reading a magazine article. It just is.
The sad thing is that it just gets worse and worse and worse. Every year it seems like the blue Tennesseans and the red Tennesseans drift further and further apart, to the point where we no longer speak a common language.
And as far as the echo chamber goes, you knew it was an echo chamber. You knew you were drinking the Kool Aid. And you knew that every time Atrios was pointing out a particularly egregious media misstep, that Rush was pointing out one of his own. But just think about how badly we would have lost if you hadn't been doing this.
-- C.R.
Andrew Leonard's "Trapped in the Echo Chamber" is spot on. I went into this election convinced that Bush was going to be decisively voted out; that the majority of Americans saw clearly his failures and dangerous incompetence, and were going to do the right thing.
I have been seriously disillusioned by what actually happened. I certainly accept basic responsibility for not seeing it coming, but I blame the blogs for making it so easy to delude myself. And as of now, I am going cold turkey on political blogs. No more echo chambers for me.
Of course, since I already disdain mass media, this puts me on a course of withdrawing from political/social news altogether. So be it; ignorance, if not actual bliss, is less painful, and I need to be numb for the next four years.
-- Andy Moore
Andrew Leonard's piece "Trapped in the Echo Chamber" did prove a good point about the Internet's temptations for radicalism among Americans. However, the tone of the article suggested a defeatist attitude that I think is unhealthy and unnecessary. The fact that there were differences of opinion and that there was an energized opposition to the president proves that all is not lost in what we call America. We will move forward from this moment, as we have from others.
-- Joanna Peterson
I enjoyed, and I concur with, your article today. Like-minded sites are a powerful narcotic. As an example of like-minded thinking I offer you this anecdote.
I worked for several years at a branch school of the University of Wisconsin system. The director of the Advising Center, now long retired, told me about the reaction to Nixon's landslide in 1972. Professors and staff at this branch school were stunned that McGovern lost!
To turn Emerson on his head, whether they are Internet blogs or an insular academic community, familiarity of views breeds contentment not contempt.
-- Richard Taylor
Andrew Leonard is way too hard on himself. If he had spent time talking to people in Alabama who held radically different views than his on subjects like abortion, gay marriage and religion, he would have ended up being even more depressed than he is now.
Those of us with blue state values have to accept that some Americans have very different values than ours and are not necessarily receptive to our attempts to "understand" them.
It's only by gravitating to people who do share our views, online or off, that we can work together to bring about social change. And keep our sanity.
-- Mary Durkee
