For the last few months, I haven’t been reading as much stuff that I disagree with as I should. As a rule, I think everyone should visit an ideological neighborhood on the other side of town (or the internet) at least once a day. It’s good for you, like eating your intellectual vegetables.
But lately, I’ve been consuming nothing but beer and poutine. The beer in my case is the Daily Show. It’s good beer; I liken it to the Red Racer IPA, which I savour for the art with which its craft brewers balance its hoppy bite and the subtle, comforting sweetness of its finish. I imbibe good-natured, honest satire nightly for the ironic distance it puts between me and and a well-curated sample of the world’s the world’s topical absurdity and corruption. I know every night is excessive, but I seriously can’t sleep without it.
Rachel Maddow is the poutine. And depending on your politics, you might think that’s either a swipe at MSNBC or an unfair diminution of the virtues of fries, cheese curd and gravy. I think it’s neither. Both are great, both are entirely without substitute goods in their respective market niches, and neither pretends to be something its not. You’ll never find low-fat poutine and Rachel will never agree with Sarah Palin. And I like them both that way.
I was thinking about this tonight when John was on Rachel’s show. First thought: “Sweet! What goest together better than beer and poutine?” Second thought: “I need to eat some vegetables.”
When things are going well for my side I like nothing better than a visit to World Net Daily. All that talk of FEMA concentration camps and black helicopters lets me feel smug and self-satisfied. (Almost as smug and self-satified as I feel when either Rachel or John visits the other side on my behalf and returns with hilarious footage.) But when we’re losing, I retreat to my chosen echo-chamber.
Now I agree with Rachel that conflating the Right Wing Noise Machine and MSNBC is unfair because the former is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the GOP (or is it the other way around?) and the latter is still an independent news and opinion operation. And I agree with John that it’s unfair because the former is so much better at overheated rhetoric and manufactured outrage than the latter.
But I’m not arguing that they’re equivalent. Mostly, I’m re-stating the obvious: that we live in a world where we never have to listen to people who don’t think the same things or the same way that we do if we don’t want to, so if we don’t want to become intellectual lard-asses we have to choke down something nasty from the other side every once in a while. I’m also pointing out that your own echo chamber is a seductive, comfortable place when you’ve just suffered a “shellacking,” so now’s when it’s most important for us to mix some greens in with our poutine.
