Time For A Good Argument

One can't really talk about the increasingly partisan bent in radio, television and newspapers without also covering how it plays out in the New Media - blogs, websites, and almost everything else digital.  To put it in context though, we need to consider how we argue and how that has changed significantly as a result of technological advance.Politics is about a lot of things, but much of it centers around how we debate one another and the respect we show for competing points of view. It's largely accepted now that, as an art, debating has lost much of its power to clarify and persuade - just watch Question Period and you'll get the idea. Media coverage of the political spectrum is supposed to help construct something of an ongoing narrative of our social condition. That, too, has fallen off the rails somewhat.  And now we have the bloggers - hundreds and hundreds of them - who attempt to interject their reasoning onto the screen of anyone who has a computer  or ipod.  But have these developments actually assisted us in holding a national argument, a debate, about our present state? Not very well, I suspect. The coming of the Information Age was supposed to herald a new era of citizen engagement and national dialogue.  Well, how about this? Instead of raising the level of public intelligence, it has resulted in a marked decline of awareness, with most citizens now knowing less about public affairs than they used to know. Every few months another poll will show up that informs us that most Canadians have trouble naming all the provinces and territories or who the first Prime Minister of Canada was.  This is a troubling trend and it's showing up right under the nose of rapidly advancing communication technology - the Digital Generation.Can a national debate really be progressive when we actually know less than we did before? I confess that I don't fully know, but I suspect it's true. When debate is driven more by opinion than knowledge, then reasoned argument makes little impression. And today's bloggers (perhaps including me) have no shortage of opinions. What this country requires is a vigorous public debate in politics, media and citizenry, not opinions based on a lack of facts or knowledge. Information is vital, but only when it's connected to the realities of political power and public participation. When we get into arguments about the public good that draws out mere opinions, the result is usually anger and even deeper division of the electorate. But should there be enlightenment, a greater understanding through insightful argument, then the results are often increased awareness and a willingness to find compromise.It's my premise, I'm sure to the anger of many, that blogging does little to develop that kind of national dialogue. At least politics and media have a certain real "connectedness" - journalists have to check facts and win over editors, while politicians should at least work with the public service to know the facts. There are good bloggers out there, but some of the best are connected to some kind of institutional umbilical cord that requires them to balance current realities. We will never comprehend the sudden surge in hyper-partisanship until we get a grip on the remarkable effects placed on the political system by those who aren't even connected to it.