Because I said so

Don't know how many of you followed this, but last week Zbigniew Brzezinski went on Scarborough's show and basically sonned him. It's a hard thing to not speak out of turn--especially when you're a talking head, or a blogger. There's a lot of pressure to have an opinion on everything--and to speak as though that opinion is deeply informed. One way to do that is to align yourself politically and just parrot the thinking of your ideological allies. Another way is to simply shut the fuck up when you don't what your talking about.

Opinion journalism is two parts. The first is combative--you do, in fact, want to be right. And your audience expects you to have the basics of argumentation down, and to make a game effort. But the second part is educational--its about exploration, about learning. And part of learning, is getting sonned by people who know more than you. But television tends to attract the sort of people who are more concerned with combat than exploration. In their hands, opinion journalism becomes a kind of Olympics Of Righteousness, a contest to prove your superior and infallible knowledge. Hence this Scarborough clip below.

Scarborough's people don't seem interested in researching Brzezinski's position. They're just looking for evidence that they are right. It's interesting to see them presenting that evidence when the only available to defend Brzezinski is his daughter, who's obviously conflicted and trying to defuse the situation, without dishonoring her father.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/01/because-i-said-so/6532/