This was written in December, 1991, but I think it is just as appropriate, maybe more so, now…or, at least, maybe it shows my consummate discouragement of Americans and America even then. What most disturbs me is that this was the direction twenty years ago, and, despite all my efforts to the contrary, this malaise has become the standard.
2 thoughts on “Sleight of Tongue, an essay”
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Agree completely.
Equally contagious and dangerous is the tendency of those in the know of the proper answer politic to be so weak of conviction that they refuse to hear any opposition. Rather, they shout down the alternate view through platitudes and sound-bites that have been spoon fed them.
You mention it in your article, but I think that both are of equal danger. The glib non-answer that passes unchallenged from elected leader, through alleged journalist, to apathetic ear of the citizen. The sign waving hate mongers that line both sides of a street, shouting meaningless phrases at each other until the chanted mantra is all they know, the meaning of the convictions lost on the proletariat protester herded into position by head counting organizers more interested in getting numbers on the nightly broadcast than they are effecting any real, significant outcome on the issues.
America the dream has been lost, replaced by America the sound-bite, with 30-second skip on your Tivo.
Hear, here.