The Death of American Debate

Propaganda is deadlier than bullets, because it creates no martyrs. Those who died at Tiananmen Square for democracy's sake are remembered for their courage, yet no statues are erected to commemorate the loss of debate, discussion, and dissent in the modern world... where independent voices are buried alive by the most insidious political brainwashing in history.

"The purpose of Newspeak," wrote George Orwell in 1984, "was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view... but to make all other modes of thought impossible." And truer words can hardly be applied to modern America's state of politics. Issues and ideas are instantly polarized into Right and Left camps with no room or stomach for those who don't fit the neat boxes ascribed. Cards are virtually handed out for easy access to stilted political brotherhoods - so-called liberals and conservatives alike. And the public is tagged, herded, penned in, and told which way to march to the slaughterhouse for free thinking and independent ideas.

They call it partisanship; in reality, it is cowardice. And it's ironic: in a world defined by technologies such as mass media and the Internet, it would seem that more perspectives should be coming to our attention, not less.

This is one of the great oddities of the 21st century. Diversity of opinion seems unwelcome on today's political stage, and limitless views are filtered through a rapidly diminishing media hub that chops, edits, and repackages multiple perspectives into the appearance of true philosophy. Modern debaters are a far cry from Demosthenes and Cicero, and modern debates have spiraled into block-headed ramming contests between blue and red corners. Loaded questions and intellectual dishonesty are the standards of pundits who rule the airwaves, and their disciples line up like cult members at a Kool-Aid party.

When people swallow every pill touted by their political party, they have ceased to be rational beings and have become cult members. This isn't necessarily a new thing. Certainly since before recorded history there's been an Us-Against-Them tendency to human thinking. But one of the strengths of eras like the Classical Age of Greece was its rampant plurality. In ancient China too we saw the Age of the Hundred Schools of Thought.

Today we're losing the art of debate, and finding it replaced by the poisonous substitute of partisan brainwashing. Our ideas have already been categorized for us, the Cliff's Notes, ready-mix, TV-dinner method for the busy everyman. Indeed, the very language of politics spites freedom of thought. "Let's look at both sides of the issue" blissfully ignores the fact that there are numerous angles in any debate.

So much for a Hundred Schools of Thought. So much for even ten.

Take the eternal debate over war. A freethinker can express what today is a bizarre and unthinkable heresy: "I supported the war in Afghanistan but opposed the war in Iraq, although I supported it in 1991. And a big thumbs-up to Allied involvement in World War II but a thumbs-down to the war in Vietnam!"

In today's debating circles and media outlets, this kind of sentiment is as unbearable as hearing someone declare they are pro-choice and pro-death penalty. Yet it is precisely this individual viewpoint that is far closer to classic debate than the sham substitute existing today.

The sad truth is that with every passing day, fewer people remember they are capable of thinking outside the box. They "argue" by regurgitating the exact phraseology that appears on the TV stations of their chosen priesthood. And their modern political ideologues aren't interested in discussion. They want disciples who will echo them perfectly... cloning accomplished without genetic tampering.

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This "Echo Effect" is the prime method for this kind of brainwashing, where a cabal can feed catch-phrases into the media and be guaranteed that those phrases will circulate, and be repeated verbatim, by those too lazy to think for themselves. Flip-flopper, activist judge, moral certainty... like the thumping of a woodpecker, we hear it from every pundit's mouth until, like zombies, it's being repeated by the everyman on the street. The fire of capitalism is variety and competition, breeding progress. If everything we see and hear is being controlled by a handful of companies, then we have the very antithesis to capitalism. We have a slap-down of dissent and variance, in a country that owes it's very existence to dissent.

"In proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate," said Patrick Henry in his resounding "Liberty or Death" speech on the eve of revolution, March of 1775.

We should need little reminding that civilization-defining items like the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act arrived with no debate (like the latest Iraqi resolution discussions as well.) This lack of dialogue has become a staple of current White House culture, equating dissent with being unpatriotic, which is then equated with being treasonous and then being a terrorist. Thomas Jefferson' roar that "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" is muffled by the cultish commune currently in power.

Once you've got a population reduced to two quibbling camps, dreams of despotism - whether it's theocratic, socialist, fascist, or plutocratic - can be steamrolled into every individual's life, like the Hindu god Juggernaut pulled through the streets to pulverize every citizen in its way. Like the Tiananmen tanks.

Public laziness is the root of the problem. Few people take the time to familiarize themselves with factual data or historical backdrops to why a current situation exists. Just as the hurried everyman goes through a McDonald's drive-thru to have a meal served at the speed of light, they also want quick doses of world affairs, domestic gripes, and economic analyses. Most of all, they want something that's easily digestible so they can easily vomit it back. What's simpler than breaking the world down into two push-button categories?

Too many people are being trained to flock to platitudes without taking the time to read below the headlines. There are atheist Republicans and pro-death penalty Democrats. There are more than two parties; indeed, there are numerous factions within the seams of dominant parties. But the stubborn trend of extremist voices filling the airwaves and hallways is, while certainly free speech, particularly ignorant and irresponsible speech. The world really isn't about black and white; it's infinite shades of grey, and every issue needs to be examined on its own merits with independent thinkers learning the facts and taking a stance, political parties be damned.

It's more than rising to the challenge of our illustrious intellectual forbearers. It's about keeping honest to ourselves. "Cherish your ability to think," said the philosopher Hypatia from the ragged edges of the Greco-Roman Age, "for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."

But thinking is not what the partisans want for the American population. They seek an unquestioning multitude. They seek the obedience of blinded eyes and heads pressed to the earth.

Shame on us if we comply.

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Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of "Remembering Hypatia" and the just-released "Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh." Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine. Visit his website at www.rememberinghypatia.com.