Though I often do not agree with him, I read Andrew Sullivan every day. I'm a politics junkie, after all, and Sullivan gets the best links. But there's more to it than that: I read Sullivan, a free-market neoconservative and tireless champion of Western culture, whereas I do not read much progressive-slash-liberal commentary.
Why's that? In part because I already know what I think; in part because I can't imagine anything more boring than a roomful of people with whom I unquestioningly agree; and in part because reading dispatches from the other side of the ideological fence flexes my mental muscles, and sharpens my own arguments. When a commentator's stance is poorly argued or based on disinformation (as in the hateful poison-pen columns of Jeff Jacoby, smirking poster-boy for xenophobic sloppy thinking), it points up the flaws in the conservative argument: when it's thoughtfully considered and well-written (most of Sullivan's work), it shows the weaknesses in my own—leading me to rethink, reconsider, develop counter-arguments and stronger positions, which is as it should be: opinions are transitory, and personal politics should be a work-in-progress.
So I have great respect for Sullivan, even as he and I disagree—which is okay: people of good will can look at the same set of facts and arrive at different conclusions, and it's a second-rate intellect indeed that must assume that anyone who fails to agree with him must perforce be either evil or stupid.
Which is why I've found the increasingly shrill and hysterical tone of Sullivan's war writing so distressing and distasteful, even as it culminates in a burst of hooting triumphalism. This is what we used to call "winning ugly."
That said, the man's taking a hiatus this week to get his bearings back, just as reconstruction begins and he could be crowing the loudest: a brief holiday in Selfawaria, then. Bully for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment