Can We Pull it Off?

I watched an interview with Nancy Pelosi on the Newshour. She used the after election press time to call for a more bipartisan Congress and great communication within the Congress. Interestingly, in the interview, Magarite Warner had to restrain Pelosi from flying into a tyraid about the incompetent president and the challenges faced when intellectually superior Democrats have to deign to communicate with intellectually inferior Republicans.

I hope that Congress can break this current trend of nasty partisan bickering. I
even believe that Ms. Pelosi and Howard Dean are currently sincere in this call for an end to the partisanship that has ripped apart the Congress in the last several sessions.

For that matter, I believe that there is reason to hope that we can move beyond the partisan bickering. Many of the Democrats elected in this last cycle are true moderates who are in Washington to get a job done and are eager to engage in discourse. A good example of this new style democrat is the Blue Dog Coalition.

The problem that we face as a nation is that the system of discourse taught in schools is extremely mean, and extremely manipulative. We've been taught to win arguments by changing the definition of terms. We've been taught to divide people into classes, and we have been to place paradoxes and conflicts into the foundations of our system of reasoning.

The way that we've been taught to engage in discourse undermines our ability to engage in discourse.

In universities you often find people engaged in an orgy of group think. A person who does not share the group think will branded as being as the one undermining discourse, when it is, in truth, the group dynamic that is preventing discourse.

This current post election call for open discourse is very fragile. It is unlikely that Bush will give in to Howard Dean's or Nancy Pelosi's call to abandon Iraq. As Commander and Chief, the war is still primarily under the adminstration's domain. He is likely to accept ideas on how to win Iraq and to find ways to keep the country from transforming into a Vietnam style dictatorship (as we saw happen when America took John Kerry's advice and abandonned that country).

On Iraq, Bush is likely to be open to ideas, but is unlikely to engage in the group think shared by Pelosi, Dean and Reid.

I suspect that before we are far into this lame duck session, Pelosi will be heaving accusations at Bush that, because he does not share Pelosi's view of life, that he is undermining discourse. My guess is that if the direction of the Democratic Party is left entirely to Nancy Pelosi, what we would probably see is nothing more than a stab at conciliation, followed by efforts to frame the breakdown of bipartisanship on Bush.

The method works quite well. If you think outside progressive "group think", you get labelled as a contrarian unwilling to engage in discourse.

This method is absurd. Basically, if you do not come to all the same conclusions as the progressives, then you get accused of undermining discourse. This is absurd, because the whole reason for engaging in discourse is so that people can discuss different options.

Quality discourse does not lead to a situation where everyone thinks exactly the same. Quality discourse leads to a dynamic system where people have different ideas but are still engaged in pursuing a common good.

The Blue Dog side of the Democratic Party might be able to bridge the gap. This group will have to stand against the "group think" mantality of its own party leadership. As this group is looking for practical solutions, there is a small chance that they will succeed.

I hope that Congress really concentrates on improving the quality of discourse. My skeptical mind makes me think that we will have a very brief interlude of postering followed by attempts to blame the break down on one's opponents.