Re: My Generation
I think prejudice has always been the same, but with less in-depth reading, and so much information overload, it's harder to see if your prejudices make any sense. And as a result, extreme political discourse seems more par for the course, not just for idealogues. It goes along with a general decline in manners, by my reckoning. People seem more willing to start yapping out silliness without censoring themselves or admitting they probably don't know much about a subject and aren't honestly interested enough to keep current. Repeating whatever you hear on talk radio is not keeping current, and not acquiring deep knowledge.
I do take your point that the blogosphere and variety of websites thrusts things into the light which might otherwise have remained hidden, but so much of what passes for news is still triviality or demands the context of greater understanding to be worthwhile unless one simply enjoys seeing one party trying to slam it to the other near-randomly. And it's the same with other things besides politics too. There just seems to be a high degree of unearned self-satisfaction about one's level of knowledge coming across these days, at least so it seems to me. And shouting seems to substitute so regularly for discussion that they even build t.v. and radio programs around it. I just get the feeling that people used to feel more obligated to know what they were talking about, and maybe acquire some deep knowledge instead of skimming a wiki article or turning on the radio. I guess there's a sort of "I'm fine where I'm at" today that seems unsettling to me, and unearned, both knowledge-wise and spiritually too. At least, if you want to open your mouth.
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10-01-2007, 09:34 PM
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