It’s almost funny.
In a post yesterday, I suggested we seek to be the type of citizens described by Mark Slouka in Harper’s; citizens who are …
capable of humility in the face of complexity … formed through questioning and therefore unlikely to cede that right … resistant to coercion, to manipulation and demagoguery in all their forms.
Almost immediately, a reader responded thus in the comments section:
When I try to imagine an informed electorate, I remember all the forces that lie to and scare the ignorant among us. And the media that won’t lift a finger to stop them.
It’s a pleasant fiction to believe it’s happening with equal frequency across the political spectrum. But proud ignorance is the domain of one political party …
The emphasis is mine. In the event you weren’t sure, that commenter was referring to the Republican Party
So much for humility and resisting demagoguery: This commenter, and at least one other on the same post, seem to believe Republicans have cornered the market on “proud ignorance.”
Seriously?
I’m among the first to express disgust with much that has been (and continues to be) uttered by certain Republicans. Like the former smoker who becomes an anti-smoking crusader, this past member of the GOP frequently elbows his way to the front of the line of the party’s most vocal critics.
Regardless, it is entirely unfair for me or anyone else to suggest that Republicans (as a class) have all but monopolized “proud ignorance.”
Leading Democrats are perfectly capable of this trait, from the Speaker’s stammering, non-credible explanations of what she was and wasn’t told in briefings on “enhanced interrogation techniques” — to the Vice President’s blustery insults of Russia.
By the same token, there are any number of contemporary Republicans who have exercised considerable intelligence and dignity, from Sen. Lugar’s reasoned assessment of Obama’s handling of foreign policy — to Sen. Bond’s constitutionally grounded decision to vote for Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation.
Individuals who disregard these and other such examples — who gloss over them in order to whitewash one political class while demonizing another — are as guilty of proud ignorance as those they accuse.