Nuance is not a Vice
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
A short speech I penned:
Today more than ever in recent memory, political debate in America has become filled with rancor. Intellectual, nuanced argument has given way to invective-laden tirades, while rhetoric has replaced reason. No longer is politics an arena for high-minded discourse; it is now simply an arena for brutal, savage mud-slinging, and the ideal of cooperation was the first unfortunate victim.
Partisanship is good. Disagreement and healthy debate is good. Challenging the other side to constantly refine and improve their position is good. But as Aristotle famously put it, everything in moderation.
Partisanship becomes crippling when it entails denying the mere idea that an opposing point could be valid. It has become taboo for Republicans to accept a single Democratic criticism, and equally impossible for the left to acknowledge any positive actions taken by the Bush administration. It appears free speech no longer requires respecting another’s right to dissent.
We are not so different, liberals and conservatives. Political scientists classify the ideological divide in America as between “left-liberal” and “right-liberal”. Both stand for individual liberties, free press and free democracy. Both stand against tyranny and oppression. Our disputes push us apart until we are seething and spitting at one another, and we become blinded to that which bonds us as brothers and sisters.
America will stagnate until decorum is restored. State and federal legislatures cannot function when the parties make it their mission to best the other guy, rather than serve the people.
There are heady issues to be discussed, many of which are divisive and charged. Let politics once again become the forum for this grand debate, one undertaken with poise and eloquence. It is far simpler to slander, to obfuscate and rankle the electorate through hyperbole and double-talk. But that is not the American way, and it does a vast disserve to the legacy of this great nation.
There were disagreements among the founding fathers, and many could not stand their compatriots’ ideologies. Yet Jefferson and Adams did not engage in a match of vituperative oratory. Like statesmen they laid out their positions; like statesmen they make their cases; and like statesmen they worked out a compromise.
America needs more statesmen.
No one has the perfect solution, and anyone who claims to in a 30-second T.V. spot is flat-out lying. Policymaking is a process, one which requires informed input from a breadth of perspectives. Cutting out a voice entirely makes the chorus that much thinner. The left and right alike play this game, from elected officials to grassroots supporters.
There is a simple truism not spoken aloud often enough: No politician – no politician – rolls out of bed in the morning and thinks, “how can I make this country worse today?” It is time to stop treating the opposition as if they were malicious. Take exception to their methodology or ideology – never question their intent.
America is the most robust democracy history has ever seen. Our system of government was built on the back of complexity, and has thrived there for over two hundred years. Let us not degenerate into a contest of who can shout the loudest – we can ill afford it. The world can ill afford it.
It is time now to reel in the rhetoric, to reestablish the foundational ideals of educated debate. This new national discourse may set the direction for America as she sails into the uncharted waters of the 21st century.
Make no mistake: Our veins run with the blood of statesmen. If we begin acting like them, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.
Thank you.
