Sunday, January 25, 2009
Distressing
posted at 10:53 AM |
Permalink |
It's always seemed to me that the wisest course of awareness and opinion-forming is to listen to everything you can possibly handle and then ponder and weigh it all. Therefore I was unsettled when I heard a news item in which Obama advises people not to listen to Rush Limbaugh. It seems foolish to me to assume he has such a level of importance, for one thing. And to be honest, I can't stand listening to Limbaugh because his tone of voice and his words are so fist-poundingly adamant. Reading him isn't quite as unpleasant but I find him difficult to take in any form. Neveretheless, I am very uncomfortable with anyone advising me to listen or not to listen to anyone with opinions even if the advising person is our newly elected president.
I know I'm skittish about being told what to read or listen to because I was raised by an academic who tried to control my reading material at every turn, even to the extent of banning Nancy Drew because the novels were not well enough written ("trash" was the word my father used) and he wanted my reading teeth to be cut on more literary tomes. The result of his efforts was that for a while I sought and read only so-called trash, of course.
That aside, my sense is that it's far better to get input from various horses' mouths - no matter how disagreeable and no matter how probable that one's opinions will not change - than to be strong-armed by others even if they have our best interests at heart and even when they are correct about some opinions being wrong. In that regard, Fresh Bilge cited this article, one that is certainly one-sided, but better to read than not know about. Attempts at thought control, even by people one generally agrees with, alarm me.
I know I'm skittish about being told what to read or listen to because I was raised by an academic who tried to control my reading material at every turn, even to the extent of banning Nancy Drew because the novels were not well enough written ("trash" was the word my father used) and he wanted my reading teeth to be cut on more literary tomes. The result of his efforts was that for a while I sought and read only so-called trash, of course.
That aside, my sense is that it's far better to get input from various horses' mouths - no matter how disagreeable and no matter how probable that one's opinions will not change - than to be strong-armed by others even if they have our best interests at heart and even when they are correct about some opinions being wrong. In that regard, Fresh Bilge cited this article, one that is certainly one-sided, but better to read than not know about. Attempts at thought control, even by people one generally agrees with, alarm me.
4 comments
I agree and it worries me that the president would bother to bring up Limbaugh's name.
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