“Democracy suffers when
winning arguments tops solving problems”

 

Published October 14, 2007

 

In “Life Without Principle” Henry David Thoreau made the following statement; “I hardly know an INTELLECTUAL man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.  Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.  They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view.”

 

This seems to be the state of American society.  It seems that no matter where I go, when I voice my thoughts, instead of being informed of the DIFFERENT perspective possessed by my listener, I am informed (often angrily) that MY perspective is wrong.  Whereas I am voicing my thoughts in order to receive other’s thoughts in return, and so broadening, hopefully, my own perspective, others seem determined to IMPOSE their way of viewing things upon me.  This is all the more frustrating when, upon examination, I discover that they offer nothing but common dogma to support their views.

 

This behavior is evident everywhere, and is thoroughly exploited (indeed, ENCOURAGED) for both political and commercial purposes.

 

I have been told that if one’s mind is “too open,” one’s “brains will fall out.”  While this may be a cute way to end a debate, it betrays an unhealthy willingness to ignore new information, with which we are bombarded daily, and so to willfully limit one’s own understanding.

 

American society has come to appear, to me, as a collection of individual fortresses protected by impregnable walls of incomplete knowledge, ready to repel any and all challengers.

 

American “democracy” now seems to be more about winning the argument than solving the problem.