“WELL, NO WONDER!” DEPT.
22 May 2013
22 May 2013
Writing for The Washington Post on Monday (Austerity and Keynes Can Coexist), Post editorial writer Charles Lane asserted the following:
“Nobelists may be better qualified to describe the issues than the average voter, but they are no better qualified to decide them.”
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Here in America, we live by the belief that any amateur’s opinion (especially one’s own) is equal in all qualities to that of any expert’s knowledge-based views.
But did Mr. Lane truly mean to assert this belief? Or was it an byproduct of flattering his readers?
One does not usually expect to read such a limited point of view from the staff of one of America’s leading daily newspapers.
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Most Americans agree that our educational system is challenged to keep up with others throughout the world. Our educational challenges are supported by this belief that my opinion beats your expert knowledge. Any nation that does not value learning and education—and facts—is not likely to do to well at teaching its children how to excel in those regards.
When even the bulk of our school teachers read no challenging books in their off time, is it any wonder American education is suffering?
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If a paid-professional writer such as Charles Lane asserts that his readers opinions are valid equally to his or anyone else’s, why would any of us want to be reading newspapers in the first place? Especially The Washington Post.
Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!
@GozoTweets
Revolutions Around the World
2 February 2013
02 February 2013
A Felicitous Element common to many comments on Fareed Zakaria’s opinion essays in The Washington Post is that the quality of many of the “comments” is unusually thoughtful. Trolls are few. The company there is often pleasant and thought-provoking.
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In a Comment on Mr. Zakaria’s latest Washington Post essay, Arab Spring’s Hits and Misses,* one reader, ffrey63, wrote,
It has been well said that the American Revolution succeeded because, unlike the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, it was waged by reluctant revolutionaries. Moreover, the historical record is pretty clear – most revolutions are transfers of power, not exchanges of tyranny for democracy.†
The comment called to mind another theory, recently read, about the American Revolution. The other theory characterized America’s origins as more of a civil war than an actual revolt against tyranny. The thought was new to me: that what revolutionary pressures our Founding Fathers experienced were mild, compared to other such struggles in history. This perspective makes America’s founding seem even more remarkable.‡
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Mr. Zakaria’s Main point, taken away from reading his thought-provoking essay, is the hypothetical proposal that Jordan’s monarchy may be slowly moving its country deliberately, step-by-step, in the direction of a constitutional monarchy. It’s a nice thought. One hopes that substantial reality lies behind it.
One wishes to believe that today’s Arabian monarchs respond increasingly to the tenor of the times. One also wishes to believe that that “tenor of the times,” regardless of how reasonable its first soundings (in U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq) may or not have been, will yield continual reverberations of democratic republicanism throughout the more-troubled regions of the world.
Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!
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* Read Fareed Zakaria’s Washington Post essay here: Arab Spring’s Hits and Misses
† One may find the full comment by clicking the link to all comments, and searching for ffrey63 by date and time: 1/31/2013 7:36 AM CST
‡ Regrettably, the source of this viewpoint has been forgotten.