Welcome to my rant!
I’ve been down this road before, but here we go again.
A couple of years ago someone did a study which found that Americans do not tend to read or listen to people they disagree with.
This is on my mind today because I recently read the most wonderful counterpoint to this ideological myopia. The New Yorker published a selection of Norman Mailer’s letters, the best of which were letters to his friend and political rival William F. Buckley, Jr.
Mailer, in my favorite of these letters, responding to a published appeal from Buckley for donations to help his then struggling magazine, The National Review, said that while he disagreed with pretty nearly everything the magazine said, he wanted to contribute secretly, because good writing should be supported.
I have confessed before that William F. Buckley, Jr. was one of my youthful heroes, as was Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
In my view, the rule of whether someone is worth reading and listening to remains, “Do they make me think?” Not, incidentally, “Do I agree with them?” Not, “Do they confirm my worldview or share my perspective?”
Do they make me think?
Thomas Sowell, Rebecca Chopp, Christopher Lasch, Marilynne Robinson, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and John Gray (the British political scholar, not the Mars and Venus guy!), Theodore Zeldin, Toni Morrison, Lewis Coser and Michael Ignatieff: the thing they all have in common is the vigor of their thought.
Maureen Dowd, David Brooks and Thomas Friedman stimulate me to see things anew, even when I disagree with them. In fact, it’s when I disagree that I am most stimulated.
I don’t read The Economist each week to have my prejudices confirmed. I read it because of its in-depth analysis and droll prose. So, let me offer a challenge. Every day for the next month, read someone you don’t think you’ll agree with. Let one rule guide you in the selection: Do they make me think?
Maybe instead of another serving of chicken soup for the soul, we could all use a dose of “Team of Rivals” for the mind!
Michael Jinkins is Academic Dean and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. mjinkins@austinseminary.edu
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written by Jim Conner, November 12, 2008
I am starved, starved for a thoughtful article, or word that is not loaded up with rhetoric and hyperbole and bias. My reading and listening skills are regularly and relentlessly tested, from denominational sources, seminaries, news papers and national news outlets. The craft and skill of reporting the news seems to have died an ignominious death.
Like a recent blog to this site by , Michael Jinkins , who posted his treatise on why reading those who disagree with you is important and in particular how stimulating it can be caught my attention. The reason it caught my attention is I am so starved for stimulation from what I read. Last night my wife and I decided to cancel our subscription to the Los Angeles Times. A storied publication of many decades, many people I know have done the same thing. Well crafted opinions articulately stated can be quite stimulating, and draw each of us into sharper distinctions of clarity on our own beliefs as we stretched to encompass a cogent response for the lingering weaknesses of our arguments and beliefs.
However, most of what I read these days, from almost all sources, seeks to promote facile, single agenda arguments without going to the trouble of objective research or in any way even scratching the surface of the views of thoughtful or even seemingly thoughtless opponents. I have written to various of these and invariably receive no response, substantive or otherwise. This publication as well has crossed that line egregiously many times in the past in particular the publisher’s articles that relate to stories of the work of the PUP task force of the PCUSA.
But I digress, in California we are facing a budget shortfall, the L.A. Times mocks the Governor in a ‘news story’ for not proposing raising taxes sooner, which is the standard line used among those who worship the plundering of wealth over the creation of wealth which frankly too few understand. What the author does not state is that California has seen revenue increase from 71 Billion dollars to over 102 billion dollars since 2004. This is not an obscure fact, it does not take relentless research to uncover, but the lazy writers of today will not do the work of exposing anything other than their own uninformed bias.
Even our own General Assembly would not allow the most respected author on the human sexuality issue to speak from the platform at the last assembly. I had an identical experience as a delegate in 2001, when the leaders of the African Presbyterian churches were denied the right to speak, and I was not even allowed to make a motion to give them a moment of privilege. In this culture of controlled propaganda watching Bill O Riley on Fox news is as close as most of us will get to hearing an honest exchange of ideas. We as a church ought to set the standard for our culture but we appear to be violating it in an even more egregious fashion.
Jim Conner is Lead Pastor of Arcadia Presbyterian Church in Arcadia California; it worships in 5 languages and speaks 21.
Like a recent blog to this site by , Michael Jinkins , who posted his treatise on why reading those who disagree with you is important and in particular how stimulating it can be caught my attention. The reason it caught my attention is I am so starved for stimulation from what I read. Last night my wife and I decided to cancel our subscription to the Los Angeles Times. A storied publication of many decades, many people I know have done the same thing. Well crafted opinions articulately stated can be quite stimulating, and draw each of us into sharper distinctions of clarity on our own beliefs as we stretched to encompass a cogent response for the lingering weaknesses of our arguments and beliefs.
However, most of what I read these days, from almost all sources, seeks to promote facile, single agenda arguments without going to the trouble of objective research or in any way even scratching the surface of the views of thoughtful or even seemingly thoughtless opponents. I have written to various of these and invariably receive no response, substantive or otherwise. This publication as well has crossed that line egregiously many times in the past in particular the publishers articles that relate to stories of the work of the PUP task force of the PCUSA.
But I digress, in California we are facing a budget shortfall, the L.A. Times mocks the Governor in a news story for not proposing raising taxes sooner, which is the standard line used among those who worship the plundering of wealth over the creation of wealth which frankly too few understand. What the author does not state is that California has seen revenue increase from 71 Billion dollars to over 102 billion dollars since 2004. This is not an obscure fact, it does not take relentless research to uncover, but the lazy writers of today will not do the work of exposing anything other than their own uninformed bias.
Even our own General Assembly would not allow the most respected author on the human sexuality issue to speak from the platform at the last assembly. I had an identical experience as a delegate in 2001, when the leaders of the African Presbyterian churches were denied the right to speak, and I was not even allowed to make a motion to give them a moment of privilege. In this culture of controlled propaganda watching Bill O Riley on Fox news is as close as most of us will get to hearing an honest exchange of ideas. We as a church ought to set the standard for our culture but we appear to be violating it in an even more egregious fashion.
Jim Conner is Lead Pastor of Arcadia Presbyterian Church in Arcadia California; it worships in 5 languages and speaks 21.