Saturday, September 02, 2006
No Artificial Ingredients
Part of the crucial role of winning the populace away from elite-brokered politics is providing an appropriate alternative narrative. Differences in consciousness, education, and outlook make that easier said than done.
Recent discussions featured here lately illustrate that absent a shared experience in public affairs, one that includes a common sense of threat and shared fate, it is difficult at best to integrate around a mutual sense of identity. This observation holds equally true for the relationship between conventional liberal Democrats and those who demand total social inclusion, as it does between these liberals and Republican conservatives.
Acknowledging the vital role of authentic communication in the current process of social disintegration and hopefully future reintegration around common values, necessitates the abandonment of artificial means of persuasion so abundant in the field of advertising and politics at present. If we want our relations to be more genuine, our understandings must likewise be less synthetic.
Recent discussions featured here lately illustrate that absent a shared experience in public affairs, one that includes a common sense of threat and shared fate, it is difficult at best to integrate around a mutual sense of identity. This observation holds equally true for the relationship between conventional liberal Democrats and those who demand total social inclusion, as it does between these liberals and Republican conservatives.
Acknowledging the vital role of authentic communication in the current process of social disintegration and hopefully future reintegration around common values, necessitates the abandonment of artificial means of persuasion so abundant in the field of advertising and politics at present. If we want our relations to be more genuine, our understandings must likewise be less synthetic.
