Conservative Talk
From Zanecorpwiki
I've made it a point recently (starting Nov-Dec 2009) to tune into the local conservative talk show station while driving. My original motivation was simple interest in what people are chatting about. The problem is that it seems it's at least 50% commercials and 20% intros and promos. There seems to be about 20 minutes of actual content per hour, and when I do catch some actual talk, it's usually pretty weak sauce. There's a (couple?) finance shows that are decent but not interesting for myself. Everything else--politics and religion--is just so poorly formulated that it's embarrassing to listen to. I mean... it seems that 2/3 of the statements I hear (and I haven't been able to catch that much yet... commercials and such) is self-contradicting. I don't even need to know anything about policy or politics to know that the point is flawed because the flaw is in the argument itself.
Finding the contradictions is fun... but also too easy. I debated starting this section because it can easily seems like--and to be honest is to some extent--me saying, "Aha! Gotcha!" But it's the "gotcha" mentality that I find disquieting in mainstream conservatism. So there's a definite hypocrisy going on here.
On the other hand... man... I hear people say stupid things and I think, "You know... the person saying this isn't stupid. They should know better." The problem is that they never get called on it. Culturally, we accept it. Sure, lots of people complain, and there's plenty of half-mocking/half-smug crap like this to point out the problems, but honestly, this kind of chastisement needs to be there. There needs to be more of it.
To be fair, it's not just the conservatives... many of the shows on "Air America" had the same problem. The issue is that mainstream conservatism has embraced being dumb, naive, and childish. It's retrograde and insulting. We can do better and those who define their culture as embracing ignorance and childishness should be called out for it.
I'd honestly prefer to do it with a little less mocking, but sometimes what's being said is so dumb that the only way you can point it out is to say, "That's stupid."
