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April 08, 2006

Idealism and the Blogosphere

I see Matt Welch is bemoaning the horrors of the blogosphere as he leaves Reason magazine (a fine publication you'd do well to read regularly) to take a job with the Los Angeles Times (which I could take or leave). Welch's subhead really tells the whole story: "I used to think blogs would transform ideologues into nonpartisan truth-seekers. Man, was I wrong." Not to be too harsh on Matt, who's a fine writer I enjoy reading, but it's hard not to respond to that with 'duh'.

Yes, it's true that after September 11th, people were briefly willing to set aside their partisan tendencies. That's a natural reaction to an existential threat. At the time, it was clear we were facing people who were willing to do just about anything to kill us; banding together to figure out how to defeat them mattered a lot more than domestic politics. But that could only last as long as the threat was evident. As the months and years went by without an attack, the worry about terrorism striking us has faded, allowing our basic disagreements to resurface and take on greater apparent importance. Let's face facts: we disagree on some very basic premises of what America is and should be. When I think America is about individual achievement and you think it's about equality, we're going to disagree pretty strongly regarding how the government should act. And Americans have always been willing, not to say eager, to demonize their political opponents going all the way back to Washington.

That doesn't even consider the fact we disagree on the best way to deal with the threat of terrorism. Despite what some Republicans might have us believe, Democrats do care about protecting the country and worry about the right way to do so. But people can worry about the same situation and come up with very different ideas for how to deal with it. Depending on who you ask, invading Iraq was a vital next step in winning the war on terror, or it was a terrible distraction that has placed us in greater danger than we were in before. As difficult as it may be for some of my readers to believe, it's perfectly possible to believe either of those things quite sincerely, and despite what a lot of people say, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that either side's conclusions are accurate yet. But sincerity doesn't change the fact that if one is correct, the other is incorrect, and doing the wrong thing can have catastrophic consequences. For those who believe the war in Iraq is a distraction from the larger war, all we've done in invading Iraq is squander moral capital and the lives of our Soldiers and Iraqis alike. Those opportunity costs have ensured our inability to respond forcefully to events of the past few years in Iran and North Korea (whether or not it would have been wise to do being a separate question; Iraq has limited our options) and continue to limit our ability to respond to terrorism threats elsewhere. If those who oppose the Iraq war have assessed the threat correctly, we find ourselves in a very bad position to continue to fight terrorism in a war that will last for many years. Conversely, if those who support the war in Iraq are correct, calls to pull out now are only harming our cause and making it more likely we will be threatened by worse terrorism in the future. It is hardly surprising each side has grown more and more shrill over time in defense of what they honestly believe are the right decisions to make, decisions that are quite literally a matter of life and death.

Welch also fails to understand the dynamic that drives a lot of web traffic: agreement. It would be lovely if the human race consisted of people who did nothing but seek out all data and work together to determine the optimum solution to each problem, but that's not how we work. As any honest reporter can tell you, objectivity is an incredibly difficult standard to meet under any circumstances, because it goes against our instincts. Because there is so much information available to us, we all tend to shorthand most data given to us based on preexisting criteria: who provided the data, is it congruent with what we already believe, does it support what I can see with my own eyes, etc.? It's intellectually sloppy, but it's also the only way we can function without being bogged down in paralysis by analysis. And so it should come as no surprise that a lot of the most popular and best-known blogs out there are highly partisan: they provide data that people are already inclined to agree with. Whether you want to hear about how badly President Bush is screwing up or how dumb the Democratic party is, it takes very little research to determine where you can go to find like-minded people. And so partisanship, as is its purpose, allows the creation of pockets of strength that may be greatly disproportionate to those positions' strength in the larger society.

Complaining about these facts is understandable; I often find them frustrating as well. But one may as well complain about the Earth's frustrating tendency to rotate on its axis or orbit the sun; the facts will remain as they are. Rather than complaining, the best thing Welch could do is to try to be one of the lights he believes the blogosphere could provide. Would he get the traffic of the biggest sites? No way. But that's no reason not to offer a little factual analysis and reasoned comment into the mix.

(Hat tip: Professor Althouse)