I happened to catch Newt Gingrich's presentation to BookTV at the Reagan Library which can be seen here. As he set the stage for his new book on George Washington, he presented a sweeping context and analysis of the nation's post-2012 election situation. It was breath-taking in its conciseness, perception and scope. I found myself thinking --- this is what our kids need to be hearing. A lot of the power of the presentation was the life experience he's had to back up what he's saying. He knows what he's talking about
But here's what hit me ---- in scanning the list to see if I could find a repeat for the kids to watch, I found myself reading through the titles of the other presentations. I noticed several that I knew would be coming from a polar opposite point of view. I also knew that these would probably be persuasive presentations from their point of view. And some of them might have a good point about some issue that I would even agree with.
But here's the dilemma for our present culture. It occurred to me that if my kids happened to sit down and watch Newt (without the prompting that is about to come), they might be completely inspired by this conservative vision. But if they happened to sit down and watch a well-produced program on any one of these other issues, they could be emotionally moved to think that the leftist point of view must be correct.
I can envision a leftist watching Newt and then watching one of these other programs, and using the potentially emotion-laden, fact-driven presentation to think he has trumped Newt's presentation. And he would be doing that based on the presentation of a particular issue, using that to refute the whole context. I would like for him to be persuaded by Newt, and then for us to be able to take this particular issue and respectfully discuss how to sort through that issue within a world-view that preserves rather than dismantles our historically free society. But in typical social discourse anymore, we can't distinguish between a powerful appeal based on a limited issue and the overall world-view context in which the issue is cast. For him, any particular example, especially if it is made to be emotional grabbing, is sufficient to shut off even thinking about the merits of the conservative framework.
My observation is hypothetical, of course, but it illustrate for me the 'sound-bite' debating mode that has polarized and frankly, moronized the typical political conversation today.
