My friend Andrew has been guest posting over at Obsidian Wings lately, and this post makes me think that perhaps the issues between the left and right go deeper than he may imagine.
Andy's point seems to be that a lot of the acrimony we see on the web (and in the MSM) stems from an inability for those on the extreme ends of the spectrum to see past the stereotypes they impose on their opposite numbers. To a certain extent, I believe that he's correct in this - if you honestly bellieve that your opponent is evil and stupid, why would you listen to what they have to say?
But I don't think he's gone deep enough with this. Sure, stereotypes can be tough to overcome, but an intelligent, reasonable person will recognize that he or she has biases and do their best to try and work around them once they know what they are. But that makes two assumptions, neither of which I am certain holds true in the majority of the American population.
Assumption #1 - we are all speaking the same language. This is a pretty big one here - and its not what you might think, either. I'm not talking about English versus Spanish, or what have you. What I see is a much subtler divide, almost an issue of dialect. As a military officer, I have learned over the years just how important it is to define our terms in a mutually understood framework. For instance, ask a field artillery officer for his definition of "destroy" (30% of the enemy forces combat ineffective) and then an armor officer for his (every last armored vehicle on the battelfield a smoking hulk), and you'll see how critical that can be. Ask the artillery to destroy an approaching enemy, and you may be unpleasantly surprised by the result if you don't know this minor factoid!
So, what if the folks on the left and right are using the same words, but with different meanings? In such a case, there is really no chance they can ever come to an agreement, or in fact, see each other as anything but imbeciles. Obviously, if the other guy doesn't even know what "X" means, how can we have a meaningful discussion?
Assumption #2 (and this is the big one) - everyone involved actually understands their own position. I'm going to pick on the left wingers for a minute, only because they are usually the ones I end up arguing with (I seem to have a dearth of friends on the far right, at least any who are willing to go head to head with me). How often have you heard phrases like "No blood for oil" or "War never settled anything"?
On more than one occasion, I have seen the face of someone spouting one of those phrases go completely blank when met by a civil request to explain what they meant. The simplest request ("Prove it") to the chant about war not solving anything seemed to perplex them. "Everyone knows it" seems to be a comment retort - to which I reply that everyone knew the Earth was flat, too. Apparently, they had never actually put serious thought into what they were saying, merely repeated something that someone else had said. Catchy slogan, yes. Serious argument, no.
And there I think the root of the problem lies. We are seeing, across the nation, people who have never learned, or choose not to exercise, the ability known as critical thinking. They are told things by others, that they take at face value without ever pausing to question the basic facts. Perversely, this tends to make them defend their position even more passionately, as no one likes to admit that they might be wrong. And so the positions on both sides become entrenched, with no hope of crossing no man's land to find any kind of common ground.
I honestly don't know what can be done about this. Using one's brain, thinking about basic concepts that others take for granted - that takes effort. And effort seems to be one thing that a lot of people take great care to avoid these days...