Letters to the Editor
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@ JD
"We assume that Rev. Wright couldn't possibly be Obama's spiritual advisor on one hand and say things that run contrary to his political beliefs on the other. My question is: why?"
Because manichaean thinking and facile binaries are all many are capable of.
Because serious thinking is taxing and most can't be bothered or lack the time or the foundations or whatever.
It's the triumph of anti-intellectualism.
I once saw a documentary about Al-Jazeera and it was so fascinating to me to see that I, as an "intellectual" or "cosmopolitan" or whatever you want to call me, had more in common with the journalists there, who live in a place that's about as alien to my experience as can be (except perhaps genuine "traditional" societies), and yet I felt a far deeper bond with them than with many in my own country.
It's another deep divide: the educated v. the uneducated, the cosmopolitan v. the non-cosmopolitan.
The "fundamentalists" in the Arab world have so, so much in common with our own "fundamentalists," i.e., those who see the world in black and white.
We all have that inclination, of course, but education compels us to move beyond it, to exercise empathy and mind-stretching. Not that education is the only way or anything, but that is what it's designed to do. In esteeming a certain skill set and orientation, it makes possible the transcendence of lines of class, nation, race, gender, etc.
Dangerous stuff.