Shifting Paradigms: More Opinion from the Reformation

I know a compassionate social worker, who would do absolutely anything for anybody, and would not dream of being offensive or "judgemental." The day after 9/11, she and I were discussing the tragedy. She made what she assumed was a "given" remark, something "everyone" who had any intelligence would certainly agree with. She said, "Well, I guess we need a warmonger like Bush at a time like this." It never crossed her mind that someone involved in a helping profession like social work or counseling might have a different political opinion. Her shock that her remark would be taken as offensive, or at least uncivil, would have been funny on any other day except 9/12/01.

I was reminded again of that conversation by the reactions of the MSM to the Eason Jordan story, and the blogosphere that kept it in the light.

Journalism is not the only profession being confronted with new ideas and scrutiny. The left across many fields are experiencing the power of the blogosphere, and are reacting much the same as the MSM. Carol Platt Liebau chronicles the wailing and gnashing of teeth :

But now the air is filled with the laments of those who, for so long, have had exclusive powers through their status in the MSM to decide (1) what will be news and (2) what matters. And many of these people -- many of whom are fine people personally -- have taken to deploring the "new" incivility that's supposedly flowering with the birth of the blogosphere.

But what they don't realize that the incivility is only "new" to them. They are those who have enjoyed positions of power within the liberal elite, where they have been able either to level abuse, look away while their colleagues did it, or assume that everyone so fully accepted their own world view that abuse wasn't "incivility" -- it was just received wisdom (e.g. "Everyone knows Reagan's a warmonger").

Perhaps they're discovering now that it feels a little different when you're on the receiving end of the "incivility". But those who carry a torch for (among other things) the U.S. military, William Westmoreland, Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush could have told them that, because they've been experiencing "incivility" from the press for some time now. And unlike the liberal media bigshots, the difference is that these "ordinary" people never had a network or newspaper to fight back with; they've been defenseless to make their claims and clear the names of their heroes -- or their own.

The stages of loss include Denial, Anger, and Bargaining. The shifting of the left through these stages is fascinating to watch. Perhaps some civility will come when the beginnings of Acceptance are seen from today's power brokers on the Left.