History was made tonight. (text version also)

“Good night and good luck.”

Indeed.

The problem with our entire culture and political system is that people are not critical thinkers. They can’t afford to be, because their opinions and policy positions are completely tied up in their personal preferences and identities. It is an individualist culture, ruthlessly so, and that is the problem.

Everyone grabs ahold of one dogma or another and then can’t bear to let it go, or even discuss it. They are good, the others are evil, anyone who questions any aspect of the position is an interloper or attacker, and that is that.

Concrete positions on all sites and no room for dialectic or pragmatism. The left and the right are the same. They are exactly the same: American idiots without critical thinking skills wearing their politics like a pose. Draw attention to a problem or a new issue on either side, and you’ll find out just how personally they take it (and how quick they will be to accuse you of being either heretical or evil).

Sometimes I tend to wonder if it really is very simple: any political system is viable and comfortable so long as its citizens are bright and critical. Any political system is unjust and destined to crumble once its citizens lose the ability to doubt themselves or their own righteousness.