newstalk

Worlds of our own making.

An article over at the Belmont Club has got me thinking. Over the past four years, I feel like I’ve been living in another world from half of the population of this country. I could be blunt, and label their half “liberal” and my half “conservative”, or theirs “left” and mine “right” and everybody would know what I’m talking about, but I feel like those labels are past their prime and rather worn out from all the shouting that’s been going on the last decade or two. But I digress.

However you label them, based on recent polls, the nation is sharply divided over the upcoming presidential election. Half the country likes Bush, enough at least to re-elect him, and the other half, well, it would be soft-pedaling to say they don’t like him. In my world, George W. Bush has been a decent leader, stepping up when it’s been required of him. Sure, there are any number of things I disagree with him on, or decisions which I would question, but he strikes me as a plain-spoken, deliberate, honest fellow who has tried, and largely succeeded to do a good job of leading this country. Contrast this with the world of, say, “Dave Winer”:http://archive.scripting.com/2004/09/10#When:5:15:33PM (just because his name is Dave, and I happen to have the link handy), to whom the Bush presidency is “a failed presidency” and “the shame of the country”. How’s that for diametrically opposed? Dave Winer has done good work as a software engineer and father of the RSS syndication format, and I respect and enjoy the thoughts and commentary that he includes in his weblog. Until he posts something about politics, and suddenly there’s this glass wall between us, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how he got over there.

It seems to me that this is a general condition, extending far beyond me and Dave, and engulfing the rest of the country. Is this simply the result of pre-existing political leanings and the chosen diet of rhetoric which we consume? I’ll admit it: most of the opinion that I read would be considered “conservative”, at least in regards to Bush. Most “liberals” I know read and listen to mostly “liberal” sources. Are we seeing the boundary-case scenario here, the extreme result of a self-reinforcing feedback pattern?

It comes down to this question: how do we construct the narratives by which we order our lives? How have I come to the decision that the Iraq war has largely been a positive thing so far, while others have come to the conclusion that George W. Bush might as well “put on a brown shirt and grow a funny mustache?”:http://www.falloutshelternews.com/BushHitlerLinks.html

I don’t know–it befuddles me. For right now, I’m sticking with the world I’m familiar with. It makes sense to me base on everything I’ve seen and heard, and (importantly) it leaves room for hope that things can indeed get better. I arrive at the end of this mini-essay not having discovered anything, but it was worth a shot.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

Possibly related:

Share this: