Website review: Talking to ourselves - Los Angeles...
Someone discovered this in Politics
•15 reviews since Apr 20, 2008
politics
•latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-jac...
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Reviews of this website
bluezfire rated 3 months ago- From the page: Whether watching television news, consulting political blogs or (more rarely) reading books, Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold. This absence of curiosity about other points of view is the essence of anti-intellectualism and represents a major departure from the nation's best cultural traditions. ........... I can't really disagree. I find myself doing it, as much as I hate to admit it. It's just easier to talk politics with people who have the same opinion as you. It's easier to speak freely about religion when the person you are talking to feels the same way. No matter what the topic, the truth is that we seek out those who share the common interest in order to make us feel better about our thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Over the next few months, I am going to be given plenty of opportunity to listen to the other side of the political coin. This will give me the chance to practice my open-mindedness a bit and maybe I'll learn something from it. If nothing else, I'm sure to walk away a better person for it.
- sitasaysgo rated 3 months ago
- From the page: "Whether watching television news, consulting political blogs or (more rarely) reading books, Americans today have become a people in search of validation for opinions that they already hold. This absence of curiosity about other points of view is the essence of anti-intellectualism and represents a major departure from the nation's best cultural traditions."
- javamanjoe rated 3 months ago
- BE OPEN MINDED-BUT NOT SO OPEN MINDED THAT YOUR BRAINS FALL OUT.--[javamanjoe]. Americans are increasingly close-minded and unwilling to listen to opposing views. By Susan Jacoby April 20, 2008 As dumbness has been defined downward in American public life during the last two decades, one of the most important and frequently overlooked culprits is the public's increasing reluctance to give a fair hearing -- or any hearing at all -- to opposing points of view.
- kimberlyyu rated 3 months ago
- As a college student, I understand exactly what this author is talking about! Students (and people in general) are mostly interested in hearing what they already believe, and it's hard to convince them to even listen to the other side without a huge debate happening.
- siqtictorn rated 3 months ago
- From the page: "When I recently spoke about the militant parochialism of American intellectual life on a radio talk show, a caller responded by telling me that there was nothing new about Americans preferring to bask in the reflected glow of their own opinions. Talk radio and political blogs, in his view, are merely the modern equivalent of friends -- and haven't we always chosen friends who agree with us?
Well, no. Tell it to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who certainly had many, often bitter disagreements about politics and whose correspondence nevertheless leaps off the page as an example of the illumination to be derived from exchanges of ideas between friends who respect each other even though they do not always share the same opinions.
"You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other," Adams wrote Jefferson in 1815." - From the page: "When I recently spoke about the militant parochialism of American intellectual life on a radio talk show, a caller responded by telling me that there was nothing new about Americans preferring to bask in the reflected glow of their own opinions. Talk radio and political blogs, in his view, are merely the modern equivalent of friends -- and haven't we always chosen friends who agree with us?
- stephfoster rated 3 months ago
- From the page: "Indeed, virtually everywhere I speak, 95% of the audience shares my political and cultural views -- and serious conservatives report exactly the same experience on the lecture circuit."
It's so true. Seems like a lot of people now can barely stand to be disagreed with, or to hear the other side. - From the page: "Indeed, virtually everywhere I speak, 95% of the audience shares my political and cultural views -- and serious conservatives report exactly the same experience on the lecture circuit."
- IW84NO1 rated 3 months ago
- It is past time for Americans to stop attributing the polarization of our public life to the media, the demon entity "Washington" or "the elites." As long as we continue to avoid the hard work of scrutinizing public affairs without the filter of polemical shouting heads, we have no one to blame for the governing class and its policies but ourselves.
- scttwms rated 3 months ago
- From the page: "It is past time for Americans to stop attributing the polarization of our public life to the media, the demon entity "Washington" or "the elites." As long as we continue to avoid the hard work of scrutinizing public affairs without the filter of polemical shouting heads, we have no one to blame for the governing class and its policies but ourselves."
- Wheelsofire rated 3 months ago
- Oddly enough,this echoes the point I was trying to make in my last post.Except this the author puts so much better than me. We had the dialogue of the deaf here in Ireland. We eventually learned that shouting longer and louder just made us all hoarse,tired and partially deaf. It was that realisation that allowed us to negotiate the peace we now enjoy here in Ireland.
- sunworld rated 3 months ago
- "Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn." Benjamin Franklin
