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Wednesday, January 1, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
O
N
Jonah
Goldberg
Happ y
New Year!
From The Nugget Newspaper staff
Friday Night Lights...
PHOTO BY JEFF OMODT
Sisters’ skyline has been spectacular in recent days.
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
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Showers
Snow to rain
Showers
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Partly cloudy
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44/33
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48/31
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There is a strong case to
be made that things are get-
ting better.
In 2010, Matt Ridley
made the case in <The
Rational Optimist= that
things were better than
they appeared. Writing in
The Spectator, on the cusp
of 2020, Ridley offers an
update: We9re finishing
the best decade in human
history.
But it sure doesn9t feel
like it, does it? In the politi-
cal realm, we9re all angry
at one another, convinced
some terrible <they= is win-
ning at <our= expense. As
we end the decade, our poli-
tics are wildly out of sync
with the technological, eco-
nomic and medical events
of the last 10 years. Why the
mismatch?
Economic and politi-
cal dislocations caused by
technological progress have
been a source of unease and
resentment ever since the
printing press sparked the
Protestant Reformation. But
the pace of today9s changes
sometimes feels like more
than humans were meant to
process and adjust to.
The decline of organized
religion is a perennial scape-
goat, particularly on the
right. And although it surely
is an important part of the
story, we have a tendency to
gloss over the fact that reli-
gion hasn9t always been a
source of social peace.
These and other trends
are part of the broader fail-
ure of our institutions 4
political, cultural and famil-
ial 4 to give people a sense
of meaning and belonging.
People want to be part of
something larger than them-
selves, and when they can9t
find that close to home, they
look to politics and ideology
to provide a sense of iden-
tity they can9t find where
they live.
Another source of
national grumpiness is the
plight of young people.
Saddled with debt and lack-
ing a clear flight path to the
middle class, the young are
increasingly skeptical of
capitalism.
Psychologist Jonathan
Haidt suggests we9ve been
raising our children to be
more fragile and less tolerant
of ideas they don9t like or
find threatening. I think he9s
right, but that9s clearly not
the whole of the problem
(as Haidt would readily con-
cede). Also, more impor-
tantly, the angriest and most
divisive people today aren9t
youngsters but oldsters.
This points to the prob-
lem today9s political leaders
are most reluctant to dis-
cuss: us. Oh, sure, plenty of
politicians will blame vot-
ers for our troubles, but the
voters they single out are
the voters who vote for the
other party. TV pundits will
blame the viewers 4 of the
other cable network, not the
ones who tune into them.
Writers will heap scorn on
readers who read the wrong
writers.
We live in a culture that
finds political power in
claims of powerlessness and
cultural strength in victim-
hood. The right thinks this
is all true about the left and
vice versa. But don9t you
dare tell anybody that their
side is full of whiners, too.
Bad followership yields
bad leadership, because in
a market-based democracy
the customer is always right.
So we have one <change=
election after another,
driven by voters who don9t
really know what they want
beyond <not this.=
Nearly every politician
wants to claim to be a rebel
taking on the system on
behalf of the righteous vic-
tims who voted them into
office; few want to take
responsibility for the system
itself. Congress is brimming
with pols who are great at
messaging outrage but don9t
know jack about governing.
Senators rail about elites as
if being a senator doesn9t
make you one. Presidential
candidates 4 including the
incumbent 4insist there are
easy solutions to everything,
but <they= are blocking the
way.
Everyone wants to be an
outsider, leaving our institu-
tions without insiders will-
ing to do the necessary work
of leadership, which begins
with telling people what
they need to hear, not just
what they want to hear.
© 2019 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.