Again, both the Democrats and the Republicans have their ready made, mostly true, and repeatedly self-confirming stories about the defects of the other. They need only read the news to feel better about themselves, and the academic contingent of the Democrats is better at this than are most ordinary citizens. There is thus a rather large cottage industry of intellectuals interpreting and channeling these stories to Democratic voters and sympathizers. On the right, you will find an equally large cottage industry, sometimes reeking of intolerance or at least imperfect tolerance, peddling mostly true stories about the failures of Democratic governance, absurd political correctness, tribal loyalties, and so on. That industry has a smaller role for the intellectuals and a larger role for preachers and talk radio.
It would be wrong to conclude that the two parties both ought to be despised. This is human life, and it is also politics, and politics cannot be avoided. These are what motivations look like. Overall these motivations have helped create and support a lot of wonderful lives and a lot of what is noble in the human spirit. We should honor that side of American life, while being truly and yet critically patriotic.
That said, I see no reason to fall for any of these narratives. The goal is to stand above these biases as much as possible, and communicate some kind of higher synthesis, in the hope of making it all a bit better.
Standing above the narrative can also be a narrative for a certain sort of person if that person rejects other narratives without checking their correctness. What are failure modes of this?
That’s my failure mode, at least with political narratives (probably other areas too). To the extent that I can influence politics, I’m not going to take that opportunity, because I (generally) disbelieve what everyone else says, but I don’t put in the time to have opinions of my own.
I think I mostly like this better than the alternatives. But I do have to put a bit of effort into remembering that not having opinions isn’t the ideal state.
Tyler Cowen on mindkilling politics:
Standing above the narrative can also be a narrative for a certain sort of person if that person rejects other narratives without checking their correctness. What are failure modes of this?
That’s my failure mode, at least with political narratives (probably other areas too). To the extent that I can influence politics, I’m not going to take that opportunity, because I (generally) disbelieve what everyone else says, but I don’t put in the time to have opinions of my own.
I think I mostly like this better than the alternatives. But I do have to put a bit of effort into remembering that not having opinions isn’t the ideal state.