One of the major problems we have in our political discourse is our aversion to being challenged.
There is a very special rabbi, Y.Y. Jacobson, who made an interesting point on human nature. He asked why is it that when kids fight, they usually make up in a few minutes, whereas adults can go decades without talking to each other over some issue. He said that children wish to maximize fun. If two brothers are playing cowboys and Indians, and they fight over who shot whom, they realize that if they don’t make up, the game is over. They’d rather bury the hatchet and keep playing until dinnertime. Adults, he says, wish to maximize being right. So if one brother accuses another of taking $300 out of the family diner’s cash register, they may go years without making up because each one is absolutely convinced that he is right in this matter. They will miss each other’s happy occasions like children being born or getting married. No matter! I’m right and I’m not backing down.
One of the Ten Commandments is honoring one’s parents. There are many ways to honor them. When we would visit my retired parents in Las Vegas, we often found ourselves on the couch watching either MSNBC or CNN for hours on end. I hope that we will receive an enormous heavenly reward for sitting through endless episodes of Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and their fellow TV personalities. Our kids would switch to Fox when the folks weren’t looking, but my dad could figure out pretty quickly that something was amiss and demand that the programming be returned to his preferred channels. I hope that there is no long-term brain damage from seeing so much of these programs.
One thing I noted during those days was that it did not matter how many people Maddow and her comrades gathered together for some type of “panel”, as all of them thought exactly the same way. Sure, they found a black woman and a gay guy and someone who was once a Republican, but if one closed his eyes and just listened to them, they were all saying the same things. “Trump is a dictator.” “A dictator is Trump!” “Trump is Hitler, who was a dictator.” “Let’s not forget Stalin, he was also a dictator so Trump could be Stalin.” And on and on and on. I rarely saw any debate, and if there was some, it was only to make Trump worse. “Trump killed 100 people.” “No, he killed a thousand!” Etc.
What I now see often is that those ostensibly on the right are doing the exact same thing. Apparently, we can adapt Rabbi Jacobson’s insight and say that TV and internet personalities would rather be affirmed than actually get to the truth. Bill Maher is a card-carrying liberal, but he often criticizes the left for its policies. He recently dined with President Trump and said that he enjoyed their meeting and found Trump smart and funny. Those on the axiomatic left pilloried him for daring to meet with our generation’s Hitler/Mao/Stalin rolled into one. If we want to get anywhere as a society, we will need more conversations between people who respectfully disagree and hold diametrically-opposed opinions. The problem we have is that such an approach entails risk: what if the other guy wins the debate? I and my opinions will be thrown onto the trash heap of history. Better to play it safe and bring on people who think like I do. Less risk.
Such an approach on the left makes sense. Someone with a pro-Trump view might actually bring numbers and facts that undermine the arguments about the president and his policies. Scott Jennings plays this role at CNN and holds his liberal comrades to inconvenient facts as he presents them. The market reacted very positively to the US-China trade talks; those on the left could not discuss the trillions added onto the Dow Jones and NASDAQ. So, they decided to talk about the Qatari gift plane instead.
On the right, the problem is also prevalent and growing. A popular internet personality that does not like Ben Shapiro or Israel and believes that the latter has done too much against the Palestinians will bring on guests who think like he does. He nods along and tells his guest how right he is. I never see this fellow go after his guests as he used to do on cable TV. Rather, he affirms every word they say, says that he thinks the same, and badmouths anyone who does not think like him. Ben Shapiro has offered to debate but of course, this would break the No. 1 rule now on the right as on the left: don’t ever talk to someone who might show that your opinions are wrong. Some of those on the right have become Rachel Maddow who brings on guests with identical world views and who will not challenge a word she has to say.
This state of affairs is truly a shame. There is no question that we all like to be affirmed in our views and way of life. Every now and then you see someone who made a big life change. Whether it be the son of a Hamas founder who is the group’s biggest critic or former anti-Trump Democrats who are now the president’s staunchest supporters. If we believe that truth is on our side, then we should not be afraid of any person or opinion. Our late rabbi was always open to someone convincing him that there was no God. It would have saved him a fortune on kosher food and also would have freed up Saturdays to go to the beach. Until his dying day, no one succeeded.
However much we enjoy being affirmed and speaking to people who think like we do, it should be incumbent on well-known right-leaning internet personalities to bring on once and a while someone who thinks 180 degrees differently than they do. It may not be the most pleasant conversation and there may be fireworks. But if we want to claim that we are right and the way we do things is for the best, then we need to debate those who claim otherwise. Refusing to debate others or denigrating critics is the surest sign that one’s intellectual edifice is built on very thin factual ice.
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