(no subject)

[cyrano]

Phil should not read this.
The rest of you should consider it--Glenn Greenwald's column on the press and Ahmadinejad's recent 'Holocaust Convention'.

If for no other reason than when Greenwald says
That just isn't what "adversarial" means. An adversarial press does not mean that the media automatically and reflexively contradicts what the Government says or does. That is called being a mindless "contrarian," not "adversarial."
you can respond with a bold and immediate "No it isn't!"

Comments

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

Although I shouldn't have read it, I did.

It didn't cause me any emotional upset, but one thought did occur:

Some people either cannot or will not tell the difference between adversarial, argumentative or contrarian. Some, too, do not understand the nature of dissent.

This is one of the reasons I don't read the news or listen to our media. There used to be constructive discourse and dissent in this country, then Ronald Reagan turned argument into character assassination, and dissent into; "repeat the lie loudly and often until it becomes the truth."

I believe the state of our media today is largely the result of the bastardization of argument and discourse. Until people understand that respecting the other side and letting the listener make up their own minds is essential to modern discourse, we will be stuck in this elementary school playground version of discourse.

It really is sad, and a major reason I cannot stand our modern media. What I fear is that children will grow up believing this is the way to resolve conflict, and the chance to teach the next generation about constructive discourse will be lost.

Today I can at least comment on this, but it makes me sad to see this consistent "dumbing down" of the body politic and the our social circles. There are fewer and fewer of us who are capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation nowadays.