When I was a teenager, we were at the end of the period of domination of television in the US by the three major news networks. While they all leaned left of center, they ostensibly strove for the standard of accuracy, independence, and impartiality. That standard was exemplified by the likes of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and David Brinkley.
Those days are gone now, buried under the buffet of cable and streaming news channels, many of which are committed to delivering an unapologetic ideologically or politically driven view of the world. Do you want a liberal view of the day’s events? MSNBC is at your service. Do you want a conservative view? Try Fox News. Do you have a taste for hard right conspiracy theories? Try Infowars or Breitbart News.
As a result, now you can choose to hear only what you already believe. You do not have to suffer the angst of having your beliefs questioned or hearing those who disagree with you.
This ability to listen only to those with whom we agree, provided to a people who have seemingly choose not to exercise that choice irresponsibly, has resulted in the unprecedented political polarization we are now experiencing. The plurality of opinion in the marketplace of ideas has become merely hypothetical if we choose to hear only the opinions with which we agree.
The Bible warns of the danger of hearing only one side of any argument:
The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:17
Ironically, we have been given more access to opinion at a time when we are less able to handle it responsibly. As Benjamin Franklin made clear when questioned upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, we have been given a republican form of government, if we can keep it. Keeping it starts with heading the warning of Proverbs 18:17.
If we don’t have the character to consider contrary sources of information we will be constantly reinforcing what we already think, regardless of whether it is true. We will become insular, unconvincible, and isolated from the truth, while being assured of falsity, which is the Biblical definition of being deceived. We can do better. GS