2.17.2005
A Liberal Writer's 'Mea Culpa'
The NYT article: "When Good News Feels Bad". Writer Kurt Anderson confesses (for himself, most New Yorkers, and liberals in general) to what we conservatives have been saying since, oh, 9/12/01.
Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
New Yorkers think we are smarter than other Americans, that the richness and difficulty of life here give our intelligence a kind of hard-won depth and nuance and sensitivity to contradictions and ambiguity. We feel we are practically French. Most New Yorkers are also liberals. And most liberals, wherever they live, believe that they are smarter than most conservatives (particularly George W. Bush).
And finally, most liberals and New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism. During these past few years, I have heard it said again and again that liberals・ineffectiveness derives from their inability to see the world in the simple blacks and whites of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Bushes. (Why else, the argument goes, did John Kerry lose?)
Read this piece, if for no other reason than to watch an earnest liberal mind grapple with the truth -- the 'black-and-white truth' -- of the issue at hand. Also, catch the jab Anderson is compelled to make at Kos (hehe).
The NYT article: "When Good News Feels Bad". Writer Kurt Anderson confesses (for himself, most New Yorkers, and liberals in general) to what we conservatives have been saying since, oh, 9/12/01.
Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
New Yorkers think we are smarter than other Americans, that the richness and difficulty of life here give our intelligence a kind of hard-won depth and nuance and sensitivity to contradictions and ambiguity. We feel we are practically French. Most New Yorkers are also liberals. And most liberals, wherever they live, believe that they are smarter than most conservatives (particularly George W. Bush).
And finally, most liberals and New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism. During these past few years, I have heard it said again and again that liberals・ineffectiveness derives from their inability to see the world in the simple blacks and whites of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Bushes. (Why else, the argument goes, did John Kerry lose?)
Read this piece, if for no other reason than to watch an earnest liberal mind grapple with the truth -- the 'black-and-white truth' -- of the issue at hand. Also, catch the jab Anderson is compelled to make at Kos (hehe).
// posted by HunterByrd @ 5:04 AM 
