Economist, Einstein, and Extremism

Here's a great post from one of the Economist's Democracy in America's Washington Correspondents that is pretty lucid on the extremism of today's politics.

Basically, the tenet is that MSM's (Main Stream Media) degradation into biased segments (read Fox News and MSNBC) has given platform to extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. Broad sides by the left or right against extremist portions on the opposite side only result in the entire party taking offense. And the Digital Age has enabled a Providence even Monsieur Dantes would find swift.

The general consensus by moderates of all stripes is to deny the existence of the most offensive members of their particular pattern. True believers in communism are probably as rare as true believers in killing abortion doctors. That does not mean they do not exist. In calculus sometimes limits DNE, but it is important not to underestimate the limits of human stupidity.

Einstein may have put it best, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

But this does not solve our problem, the continuing cycle of extremist politics. As The Economist article mentions, the ushering in of the internet may have unintended consequences. Human psychology trends us to process only what we already want to believe. That's why reading about your team's last second loss over the cover of the morning's newspaper is so painful, or liberals like to watch MSNBC and conservatives, Fox News(still trying to find out who watches CNN). So the creation of countless new channels creates a self-reinforcing cycle of information.

Also mentioned in the post is the credence given to anyone who can type. Bloggers, posters, and Tweeters are all given airtime on MSM channels which are trying to stay relevant and produce 24-hours of programming every day (After Bush leaving, the singular largest reason why Comedy Central has so much material). And when the average internet user hits the internet, there is no differntiation between opinion information and objective information because many of the sites look and even sound alike. MSM channels themselves do not do much to differentiate the two, just watch Mad Money for a few seconds.

So are we doomed? No, of course not. The Wisdom of the Crowds will, hopefully, work over the course of a population of over 300 million. That is not to say that the system will be perfect, that there will be no aberrations. The point is that the process is unnecessarily destructive. To that end, we must call on Old World civility, a trusted friend (and one that not even the most clairvoyant may always heed, Mr. Daily).

There are also outlets we may turn to which do their best to keep journalistic integrity: Bloomberg, The Economist, and to a lesser degree, BBC.

Shake hands, look 'em dead in the eye, don't raise your voice, and maybe you can save the world.