Divided we stand: Arguing over what is and is not a fact

[DeepModem Mom]

Raleigh News-Observer: Divided we stand
By J. Peder Zane, Staff Writer

....(R)esearchers and writers examining our nation's splintering soul have found new fissures in the psyche of our body politic. Much more than in the past, they say, Americans are receding into separate worlds in which they hold increasingly different notions of what is real and what is not.

What role does a fact play?

On issues ranging from global warming and evolution to the war in Iraq, we are not just coming to different conclusions about the same set of facts, but are arguing over what exactly is and is not a fact. Hot-button issues have become Rorschach blots -- some of us see a bird, others a frog; few seem willing to admit that they might be both....

***

...Salon.com writer Farhad Manjoo pursues this line of thought in his new book, "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society." He argues that the highly partisan nature of so many political Web sites, cable TV shows and talk radio programs means Americans can now choose to listen only to voices they agree with. In the Rush Limbaugh/Keith Olbermann echo chamber, fact and opinion merge into a highly charged mess.

"No longer are we merely holding opinions different from one another; we're also holding different facts," Manjoo writes. "Increasingly, our arguments aren't over what we should be doing -- in the Iraq war, in the war on terrorism, on global warming, or about any number of controversial subjects -- but instead over what is happening."

In this mind-set, we don't seek information to expand our view of the world but seize on facts and opinions that confirm our biases....

http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1084351.html

[Warpy]

1. I think he's looking in all the wrong places

He needs to look at what we think of the war, what we think of the economy and how it rewards us for our work, what we think of health insurance companies, and what we think of how corporations are running this country.

He'd get a real earful and he wouldn't see much of a divide, at all.

[mrcheerful]

2. I don't belong to any organized political party....

I belong to the Democratic party. Get over it man, put 2 liberals in a room and your sure to have disorganization going on, it's just our independence coming out. See thats why repukes can't be anything but Torie off spring, they want to play follow the leader and will march behind anyone with an R behind their name, no matter if said R is somewhat left of their beliefs. Btw, anyone left of Adolf is extreme to R followers.

[Berry Cool]

3. I'm not sure whether it's the author of this article or Manjoo, but

whoever's mashing up Rush Limbaugh with Keith Olbermann and implying that they both are guilty of mashing fact with opinion is wrong.

Rush, indeed, mashes fact and opinion every day. That is part of Keith's problem with him. Keith knows and separates opinions from facts. He staunchly maintains that you have a right to your own opinion, but you do not have a right to your own facts.

Then again, I am not sure the author of the article cares. He quotes David Brooks as some sort of authoity.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Good point. As I read it back, I'm not sure either who's making the analogy.

As you know, I post things I don't agree with, or don't agree completely with -- and posted this in Media as one of several articles I've posted on political polarization.