I may be going mad. Or losing my lefty credentials. Or something, But, in the midst of this article I actually found a few points that made sense. Apart from the ridiculous aside concerning Star Wars and G. K. Chesterton (every Roman Catholic's favorite British author; he was so ultra-montane, he would have made Newman and Manning blush), the point Goldberg was trying to make - liberals are no less dogmatic and intransigent than those on the right with whom they disagree, and whom they villify for their "certainty", is fundamentally accurate. I would have wished another person had said it, and said it better, and more coherently, but the basic point he is making is one with which I am in total agreement, and have made myself on several occasions. My biggest beef with liberals is they pretend to be open-minded and welcome difference, but in fact want the "difference" to be mere appearance, preferring ideological conformity to true difference and distinction.
His example of same-sex marriage is a perfect one, and it works well because I happen to have a nuanced view. I believe that full marital rights need to be awarded to same-sex couples who wish to have their relationships legally recognized by the state. I believe these ceremonies should be civil by law, and religious by choice, and where the denominations allow them to take place. I also do not believe they should be called marriages. A distinction without a difference, perhaps, but there we are. In any case, there are few more sanctimonious, morally superior individuals than those who argue for same-sex marriage, and use their arguments to attack their opponents as hate-filled zealots who do not care about people. Zealotry, however, knows no political or religious distinction, and many of the most vocal on this issue would qualify for the modifier.
Listening to liberals preach on tolerance, diversity, and acceptability is a bit like listening to conservatives whine about how oppressed and neglected and ignored they are - they are both positioning themselves as those whose voices are not heeded in the mainstream, are victims of the conspiracies of a biased media and power structure that operates to thwart its struggle for the rescue of the American public. That both should make essentially the same argument (I am not suggesting that each argument is of equal weight; in fact, conservatives have laregly controlled the national dialogue for over a quarter century) makes one wonder, exactly, who is right and who is wrong. It also shows that both, at their core, believe themselves to be the representatives of moral and political Truth, beseiges by barbarians and infidels on all sides. I reach for the Maalox when I hear an earnest liberal preaching about human dignity as quickly as I do when I hear a conservative speak about true morality.
Humility is an underrated virtue these days. One must not only be right, but Right; one's beliefs must be reflective of ontological reality, demoting all others to perversion and error and heresy. Liberals quote DNA, conservatives quote scripture, but in the end, they are reaching for an authority they both believe is unimpeachable, an argument that is unawnswerable by their opponents. Those who pronounce a pox on the house of Certainty are, by definition, outside the argument, because, in truth, no one wants nuance and uncertainty. The stakes appear too high to afford distinction and the messy reality that doesn't necessarily conform with ideological absolutism.
Unfortunately, the stakes are indeed high, and that is precisely why we need to remove the blinders we place on ourselves when we pretend we, of all those human beings who have ever lived, have Figured It All Out, and are therefore given the tremendous responsibility of spreading our discovery of truth to all the earth. Isn't that what got us into this mess in Iraq?
When Goldberg says that liberals only want to tolerate those with whom they agree, I believe he is fundamentally truthful. It is a sad truth. We do not want to hear from those whose views differ from ours. We want our world-view reinforced, not challenged, because a challenge to the way we see the world is an affront to our personal integrity at its most basic level. We would rather insult and laugh at those whose views do not conform to our own. We have nothing to learn from those whose world-view is different from ours, because those who are different are, by definition, wrong, and therefore have nothing to teach us except error.
Political debate only works if the opponents are listening to one another. Political action only works when enough people are convinced it is possible that, by so acting, something substantive can be accomplished. Don't get me wrong, I know quite well that the recently retired and unlamented 109th Congress was an object lesson in Republican refusal to countenance Democratic difference and debate. I also do not trust all the Wise Ones from Washington, including many Republicans, offering advice on how Democrats whould act in a bi-partisan way. The Democrats have a mandate to act in certain ways, and would be throwing away their principles, as well as the support of those who put them in office, if they acted otherwise. This does not mean they possess Truth. They just have a certian amount of political authority granted them to act in certain ways.
To think that Democrats winning is a sign that Truth has triumphed over error, right over wrong, good over evil, is to succumb to the same disease that infects the current White House. The world is messy - and that includes the world in which liberals live. While I would argue with Goldberg's notion that certainty is necessary for politics, there is no doubt that it is part and parcel of liberal as much as conservative political beliefs.
Virtual Tin Cup
