How can you forget talk radio, which invented the political slogan "ditto"?

My impression of right-wing talk radio is that there is a lot of name-calling and motive-impugning (what I call type M arguments, which I do not like). Having said that, there is a lower level of intellectual debate on the academic left than there is on talk radio.

Most of my friends are on the left, and they do not even face up to the conservative point of view. Instead, it's all type M arguments, all the time. Quite sad. They believe that they are the superior intellects, but they have lost the capacity to carry on a rational argument.

Arnold Kling is far to kind to his friends. These people likely obtained a fraudulent degree behind their name. They are grossly ignorant, but more than willing to slut for the liberal establishment. It’s virtually a license to steal. They agreed to the tacit understanding: “Be liberal and we will take good care of you. Just put your wet finger into the air and see which way the wind blows. We will take care of the rest.”

Our host should barely be able to keep from vomiting whenever his so-called friends walk into the room. They almost certainly never had 'the capacity to carry on a rational argument."

"Arnold Kling is far to kind to his friends." should read "Arnold Kling is far too kind to his friends."

Being both an academic and (more or less) a liberal, I'd guess my comments aren't particularly welcome here. But what the hell.

I don't know these friends of Dr. Kling (and I must admire Dr. Kling's ability to accept as friends people who he holds in such low regard). And I have met a number of liberal members of academia. But I have not met the "academic left". I certainly have met no one who lives down to Mr. Thomson's vitriolic assumptions.

Perhaps this is because I'm in engineering (though I have studied on the other side of the campus, as well), not considered a hotbed of liberal thought. But the majority of the academics I know are, while liberal, not without some realization that there are well-meaning and thoughtful people on the other side of the political fence.

Any closed group will turn into an echo chamber. But I can't agree that this is true of the mainstream media. The Wall Street Journal editor who referred to people who make too little to have to pay income tax as "lucky ducks" ain't wandering down Liberal Lane. But the New York Times and Washington Post aren't cheering on the destruction of traditional industry as examples of "creative destruction", ushering in greater economies and a higher standard of living for all Americans, either.

As for the politically concerned Internet users, would these be such blinkered liberals as Megan McArdle, the conspirators over at Volokh's place, or our host, for that matter?

The "Echo Chamber" is an apt analogy, but it reflects only that many (if not most) people would rather be told how smart they are than face the fact that other, equally bright people disagree with them. It's easy for people in academia to find that, and the internet makes it easy for *anybody* to find that.

I think that on the Net, the default is that you have to pay attention to diverse points of view. It takes a conscious effort to tune out opponents.

I think that in the news media, the story is defined in an echo-chambery way. For example, the whole issue of WMD in Iraq is a warped story, in my view. Somehow, we went from a UN resolution which required *Iraq* to be transparent and complete to a story about whether *American* spying was accurate. I'm not saying that the misreading of Iraq's weapons programs is not a story. I just do not believe that it's *the* story.

The comment about the WSJ editorial page is not relevant here. It's the news coverage, not the editorial page, that is echo-chambery.

I think that for a lot of my friends, the default is to to ignore conservatives, the rationale being that we must be corporate plutocrats with no moral standing. My sense is that on the left, it takes a conscious effort to pay attention to diverse points of view. Some do it, many don't.

How liberal are the “elite” universities? The following piece should make you sick to your stomach:

“The assistant professor was told directly, and by a senior faculty member who is also a co-founder and co-director of the University's Solomon Asch Center, where Gil-White is a Fellow, "If you really feel that compelled by [your political convictions], you should resign your academic position, and move on to journalism.’”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12095

"I think that on the Net, the default is that you have to pay attention to diverse points of view. It takes a conscious effort to tune out opponents."

My question is, how large an effort does it take? If your bookmarks are all to left- or right-wing sites, and that's how you mostly navigate, is that sufficient? I'm afraid that for many internet users, it likely is.

And you can also find the most whack-job opposing sites and bookmark those. Then you can dismiss your opponents by using those sites as 'representative'.

Question: As a whole, has the Net enabled more conversation, and the occasional change of mind, or more finding of choirs to preach (and listen) to? (I don't know enough to have an opinion either way.)

"I think that in the news media, the story is defined in an echo-chambery way.... It's the news coverage, not the editorial page, that is echo-chambery."

No argument. Because "the media" was mentioned between two political references, I thought it was the editorial stance you were referring to.

(Please read ALL CAPS as italics.)

"'I think that on the Net, the default is that you have to pay attention to diverse points of view. It takes a conscious effort to tune out opponents.'

My question is, how large an effort does it take?"

Mr. Kling missed this by a whopping margin.

It takes ABSOLUTELY NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER to tune out opponents. It is the function of the brain to filter OUT "extraneous" detail, otherwise a rational mind could not function well enough to find food when hungry or shelter to get outta rough elements.

That is the primary FUNCTION of the brain, tuning OUT. That's basically ALL the brain DOES... Tuning out IS the default, no matter what the media. That's why teaching isn't as easy as it looks. The membrane surrounding the brain (blood-brain barrier, iirc from 30 years ago) filters out harmful chemicals in the blood stream from ever reaching the brain. The brain does similar to prevent "junk" from getting into it's cognitive space, clogging it up.

It takes effort to tune IN and actually understand a pov that is different than one's own. That's called learning.

People will read a blog (either friend's or foe's) and understand NONE of it, in essence. No time to reflect on what is actually being said anyway. Got hundreds and hundreds of blogs to read, so even if one was actually OPEN to another pov, the "tuning out" is mandated by lack of time to reflect on what the person is ACTUALLY saying (as opposed to what one WANTS to hear).

Tuning out is the default. Pretending to understand and agree is the default. Net, bridge club, work, whatever... Ignoring those one disagrees with is the default in the BEST of environments, and sound-bites of the meme du jour is just about the WORST environment for exchanging anything more than stupid memes.

"Question: As a whole, has the Net enabled more conversation, and the occasional change of mind, or more finding of choirs to preach (and listen) to? (I don't know enough to have an opinion either way.)"

I do not read the entire Net...;-) But in Blogaria there is a little changing of minds on little issues, and no changing of minds on real issues. Those issues are not discussed, as it's ALL about the "yes" in Blogaria. And people will actually blog that: It's ALL about the "yes", so when someone says "no, you are about to drive over a cliff", that is called trolling.

Blogaria is primarily concerned with whuffie and far more concerned with virtual issues rather than real ones. Real issues, in Blogaria, get resolved simply by ignoring the fact that there ARE any differences. Or just moving on to another blog, whichever is easiest.

Convenient way to pretend to collaborate, btw.

Not very productive of good ideas, but turns out a CRAP-pot load of memes.

Ah well, I give up. I've taken up enough of this forum's time and bandwidth, and thanks! (Taken up too much of my time and energy, too, which are increasingly limited resources.)

PS Mr. Kling, your previous article referenced by Dr. Weinberger was, unfortunately, not as good as a couple other's I'd read. Imo (in my observation), scanning for "changing another person's mind" and replacing each and every with "changing one's OWN mind" would have helped, immeasurably.

NOT changing another person's mind is what is humbling, like when a child tells the parent how things are gonna be. That's emPOWERING (when the child changes the parents mind and they say "oh, okay" to whatever it is), and humbling to the parent who is trying to reason with the child.

That article was backwards. The hardest thing is to change one's own mind. Snap your fingers, and see if your mind-views really change *about something important to you*. (Not too hard to change your mind about something that's not all that important, of course.)

Besides, there are only two ranges of behavior that actually CAN change another person's mind: physical/psychological/cultural manipulation and/or torture on the one hand.. and expressing a view and ALLOWING another person to change they're OWN mind, which is ALWAYS how it actually IS done, other than when manipulation and/or torture are involved.

Thanx!

LoL