Opinion

I'll start as you finished: what do I know? It's a position of humility. It is a position, some what Socratic, that lends itself to asking questions. Questions that don't necessarily prize an answer so much as a method, an approach.

I was speaking with a cab driver about the news, about false national weather reports about Chicago. We are apparently covered in snow. The television has portrayed one storm after another. Terrible winter weather--not true. Our conversation came down to people wanting one answer. What are these experts but to say, this, definitively this. Life here parts ways with the media. This is, I think, part of the way politics has been presented--yes, no, either or--a polarization.

But I don't think media manipulation is new, not new at all. And I don't think people wanting to be happy with a good wage is wrong. Nor, do I think lazy is wrong; that is, archiving a want through the least strain. What might be different is the wants of people, sometimes more self-concerned, and at others, these concerns share a common goal.

If I see a dilemma it would be between what people want to hear and what others would like them to know. But there is a problem. This is icing, not the cake. To a certain extent news is history, past. Power dwells elsewhere, makes tomorrow's decisions. Maybe by lazy you meant satisfied. The question then would be, how wants more? Who wants to make history, be ahead of the news with their opinions. This is a matter of courage. And I believe courage is the product of a sense of self. And a sense of self developed by critical thinking, to be that person who takes thought as a matter of choosing, of deliberation.

Now, if I see a problem, it would be in this area of thought, i.e., a rejection of the intellectual, in education, on the street, and generally is all aspects of our public life. That life is not defined by certain answers but by best attempts is an attitude--along with its converse--taught and reinforced. This is a cultural attitude, how we encounter what we don't know. And this is not altogether far from a religious sentiment, in particular, mystery and wonder; and I will suggest, in what little I know, that fundamentalism, in faith and Constitutional law is a stupefication that excludes the primacy of human experience and our encounter with this wide and varied world.

And lastly, I will charge that your assessment of the last hundred years in the Arab world is a an amazing statement, incredible and false. Iraq didn't exist a hundred years ago. Qutb, and his ilk, had not been active a hundred years ago. And Palestine? The cab driver mentioned above was from Pakistan, and was angry at those who would stain his faith with hate and violence. His opinion is part of a larger, a dramatic and ongoing dialog.

Another cab driver I met from Somalia said this here, America, defines democracy. He feels this place is the example for the world. And it seems to me that if there is a first responsibility it is to develop the ability to choose. Milton, in "Areopagitica" wrote on this same page, "reason is but choosing." And I affirm that to honor and respect the thoughts and feelings of others is a great step towards encouraging a dialog which is relevant and expansive.

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