Principled middle ground is bedrock of healthy democracy
In 2007 I was a
Five months later we answered the survey question again and all 15 chose the hybrid system. What happened in those five months? The first thing that happened is we realized we didn't know much about health care as a system or industry. We didn't even possess enough knowledge to be dangerous.
During the ensuing intensive study of the system, we read deeply on the subject, interviewed dozens of experts from all sectors (the head of the
My point here is not to make a case for a single-payer health care system, but to make the case for being open to changing one's mind on strongly held political and social views.
As Adm. Hyman Rickover once said, "Only a fool never changes his mind." One need not look far into their social media feeds, or just about anywhere else, to find otherwise well-educated folks intransigently convinced they are right about this or that issue. Considerate, thoughtful debate seems as rare as ever. A paradox indeed in an age when reliable information is as easy to access as ever.
Ideological certainty is hardly a new phenomenon.
This is hardly an abstract problem with which to be unconcerned. Recently, authors
They write that "the essence of fundamentalism is to deny the existence of a principled middle ground." Fundamentalist thinking includes "certainty in the correctness of one's position, belief in the perspicuity of truth, and adherence to a foundational text considered inerrant." Such a text could be religious or secular and held to be "inerrant" by the left or right. Morson and Schapiro do not pick sides. They argue against the picking of sides, at least reflexively and without any serious critical thought.
Compromise and a principled middle ground are bedrocks of a healthy democracy.
There has and always will be inflexible, fundamentalist thinking in a free society. But when it metastasizes to a point that the middle is too small and weak to hold, when too many citizens view those of a different political persuasion not as equal citizens with different views, but as irredeemable enemies, civil society crosses a threshold to dangerous territory. How close are we to that?
Morson and Schapiro do not believe we are quite at the precipice, but close enough to see it.
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