Gillis J. Harp: Are We All Ideologues Now?
[Dr. Gillis J. Harp is professor of history at Grove City College and member of the faith & politics working group with The Center for Vision & Values.]
New media have shaped our political culture. Some, like talk radio and all-news cable stations, are developments of older, established technologies. Others, like internet blogs, are based on comparatively new technologies. Yet, both venues have provided congenial habitats for that enemy of reasonable, constructive political discourse: the ideologue....
In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the ideologues I encountered were on the political left. Some were Marxists who refused to accept the existence of political prisoners in China or Cuba. Others were radical feminists who declared that all men were potential rapists. Recently, however, conservatives seem to have become more like the ideologues they criticized 40 years ago. They have long excoriated “knee-jerk liberals,” but have many conservatives actually become knee-jerk ideologues on the right? There are a few warning signs that the transformation may be well underway.
For instance, conservatives denounced Clinton for intervening in Bosnia but championed Bush’s intervention in Iraq. Or, as another example, conservatives supported cutting taxes when the country was fighting two expensive wars but, soon after, denounced dangerous deficits.
These are merely two examples that point to the triumph of blind partisanship....
Read entire article at Berthoud Recorder
New media have shaped our political culture. Some, like talk radio and all-news cable stations, are developments of older, established technologies. Others, like internet blogs, are based on comparatively new technologies. Yet, both venues have provided congenial habitats for that enemy of reasonable, constructive political discourse: the ideologue....
In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the ideologues I encountered were on the political left. Some were Marxists who refused to accept the existence of political prisoners in China or Cuba. Others were radical feminists who declared that all men were potential rapists. Recently, however, conservatives seem to have become more like the ideologues they criticized 40 years ago. They have long excoriated “knee-jerk liberals,” but have many conservatives actually become knee-jerk ideologues on the right? There are a few warning signs that the transformation may be well underway.
For instance, conservatives denounced Clinton for intervening in Bosnia but championed Bush’s intervention in Iraq. Or, as another example, conservatives supported cutting taxes when the country was fighting two expensive wars but, soon after, denounced dangerous deficits.
These are merely two examples that point to the triumph of blind partisanship....