I read with interest Bill Bunker’s column in the June 20 Monitor Forum. As usual, Bunker piles up a series of charges against something he calls “the left.” I fear I must be part of this amorphous and vague group, since I usually disagree with Bunker who must, by his own definition, be “the right.” Or in the right?
Apparently “the left” that I am part of “spew intolerance and hate speech” and are responsible for dividing the country. What I find interesting is that Bunker’s column is a prime example of the very criticisms he levels at the left: that they are intolerant of opposing points of view and are both aggressive and insidious in delivering their message.
Bunker’s column is filled with unsubstantiated accusations against Hollywood, sports figures, college professors and lawyers, all of whom he claims are wealthy and out of touch with average Americans. Also caught up in the left net are ESPN, Super Bowl ads, religious leaders, corporations, news announcers and that ever pesky press. Gosh, who is left?
Bunker has a simplistic view of what’s happening in our country right now: the good guys (the right) are over here and the bad guys (the left) are over there. If only those bad guys would just think like Bunker everything would be fine. But since they won’t, we need to stifle their outrage and clamp down on those pesky dissenters, especially that propagandizing press.
I would suggest that the issues we face in this nation right now cannot be conveniently packaged into a right against left but have levels of complexity that defy such an easy formulation.
Bunker’s view is reminiscent of an observation by George Orwell, cited in a recent David Brooks opinion piece: that authoritarians don’t use words to illuminate the complexity of reality; they use words to eradicate the complexity of reality. Bunker is right in saying that we are in the midst of political messiness right now, but the answer is not in dividing people into good guys and bad guys. It’s in acknowledging the complexity of messiness and not demonizing those who disagree with you.
(Chuck Annal lives in Concord.)