There are many folks, both here and in general, who deplore political “echo chambers,” where you don’t have to even think about opposing opinions. But having been to one or two of them online myself, I can definitely see the appeal. It’s comforting to know you’re not alone in your beliefs, and to not have to leave a website in an enraged and argumentative mood, as I tend to be in when I leave some sites meant to be an echo chamber for the opposite side.
So, if it’s a given that only listening to your “own” side is a BAD thing, how do you think the average Joe the Plumber should absorb opinions on the other side, keeping in mind that, as I mentioned above, just visiting, say, MSNBC/Fox or Daily Kos/Michelle Malkin will just leave him angry and in a “storm in and flame the whole populace, or at least get into an online shouting match to try to get some SANITY into that room” mood?
Being able to debate is a triumph of reason over emotion. Rather than letting themselves get riled up at a particularly moronic (in their view) stance on an issue, people should read what is written and check the facts for themselves. It’s much easier to do with modern technology, and I think we can all agree that the tone of debate has become much shriller than in times past, where such technology was not available.
Granted, given the histrionics I’ve seen over the past few months among some conservative-minded people, such unwillingness to even engage the other side in civil, reasoned debate may be a definitional attribute of that political ideology rather than merely an incidental characteristic.
This is not to say that I disagree with the notion of echo chambers; they have their place. Everyone likes to have a warm and safe to come home to. It’s only when people become “shut-ins” that things get problematic.
Diverse sources. Read a story from the Kos perspective and the Redstate perspective. Don’t let Townhall tell you the DU perspective, and don’t let 538 tell you the NRO perspective. Go straight to the horse for the mouth-looking therein.
I wish people would do some god damn research themselves and verify the shit being spewed by their partisan hack commentator of choice. If they say something insane like “Obama’s going to kill your grandma”, know that no one is dumb enough to actually go through with such a proposition. You don’t even have to know anything about Obama or death panels to realize that such a thing is untenable, we already ration care (drug users can’t get organ donations), and it wouldn’t benefit anyone politically (there are a lot of old people who wouldn’t be backing someone like that). A little rational thought, a little logic, that’s all I ask.
And woe to you if you continue believing in a commentator that has already been proven to lie. It doesn’t matter how many falsehoods people catch coming out of the Hannity’s and the Limbaughs, it seems their moronic viewers keep going back and forgiving them. When Limbaugh was caught with enough Oxycotin for a zoo full of elephants, that should be the end of his credibility on drugs. The fact that he advocated harsh penalties then escaped them himself should have make his listeners realize what a giant lying hypocrite he was.
I suspect that going to very partisan sites is likely to confirm your bias whether they are friendly partisan or hostile partisan.
I am a liberal but my RSS feed doesn’t contain any liberal sites. I read a mix of conservative and libertarian writers: New Majority, The American Scene, Reason, Cato, Will Wilkinson, Secular Right, Andrew Sullivan, CrunchyCon, American Conservative, Megan McArdle and occasionally, after I have taken pills for seasickness, The Corner.
I used to read a few liberal blogs and magazines like The New Republic but after a while I found them boring because they were telling me things I already knew. I now limit myself to just the OpEd of the NYTimes and (sometimes) The Guardian for liberal views.
This forced diet of opposing views has definitely changed my opinion on a range of matters. When I started reading The Economist a few years back it struck me as quite right wing but now it seems like a beacon of good sense on most issues.
The Glenn Beck fans are baffling me for this. In 2008, he says the health system sucks and it’s a miracle he’s not dead. In 2009, he says the health system is brilliant and no one can touch it.
As a moderate, I have tough time reading any message board or article comment. I find people on both sides to be terribly inconsistent. That’s the flaw of partisanship. People will forgive/rationalize/ignore the flaws in their team that they would or HAVE bashed the other team for demonstrating.
This is why Rush gets a pass for his drugs despite the right’s condescension to drug users or Vitter is not as bad as Clinton.
This is also why the left wants to use the nuclear option (or maybe even use a the reconciliation process) on health care despite their well-placed disgust at the GOP wanting to harm institutional procedures of the Senate to railroad through Miguel Estrada’s judicial appointment.
Because you can forgive your side when they are doing it because it is for a good reason or “this is different!” It’s tough to see that from either side.
That’s why I admire principled liberals and principled conservatives. I like to read Paul Krugman or George Will for this reason. They may be wrong, but they are at least consistent.
I think you have correctly identified one of challenges when ‘opposite sides’ get together for a debate.
They aren’t debating opposite sides of a particular issue…they are debating opposite sides of the political aisle, or simply attacking/defending an individual.
It’s amazing how many times an issue gets started on a thread in this forum, and then someone chimes in with ‘Oh yeah? Well <Bush>/<Obama> is even worse!’ when up to that point, political parties or personalities haven’t even been mentioned.
Unfortunately, many articles and/or message boards are specifically designed to cause outrage and disgust to someone who agrees with the author’s ideology. These authors, whether liberal or conservative, self-appoint themselves as muckrakers and take one development and extrapolate that it will mean the end of democracy or “the American way of life.” It’s similar to road rage - some disproportionate sense of hyperbolic injustice at a minor perceived slight or incident.
That can be true for some things, but the more different sites you read, the more variations you get to see in various positions. Neither of the political parties is a monolith.
I endorse the idea of reading a diversity of sources, but I think the more important activity is reading things that challenge the underlying assumptions that shape your ideology.
I believe that political opinions are like the outermost crust of beliefs. They are determined in large part by more fundamental core assumptions about the way the world works and how it ought to be.
In order to really understand the views of your opponents, you can’t just look at their opinions on the topic du jour - any reasonably well-read person should be able to predict The Corner or Daily Kos’ views on something. You have to drill down to the core. If you’re a liberal, read Edmund Burke. If you’re a conservative, read John Galbraith. Etc. Unless you challenge your assumptions about the role of the state, the relationship of society to individual, the functioning of the economy, etc., then you’ll never really understand where the intellectually honest part of the other side is coming from.
