Victor Davis Hanson, Robert G. Kaiser, and the bizarre worlds of other people

            I found this Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) rebuttal to an eloquent conspiracy theorist rather interesting: “With all due respect you and I live in different worlds that are not reconcilable.  There would be no value for me to try and go into your world because I think it would be too bizarre for me to even begin to address those issues.”  Bam!  I agree that some conspiracy theorist folks go too far – at least in their presentation to the uninitiated - e.g., the caller to VDH.  Keep in mind Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and eminent conservative voice, a serious person that writes for the National Review.  The caller could have asked VDH about topics that perhaps bridge both of their worlds, the intersection of two sets in a Venn diagram.  Hopefully there is a common ground to be reached.

            I think it is fair to say that VDH’s “bizarre” doesn’t just mean things that are different – no, VDH actively engages (so-called?) liberal worldviews.  Indeed, to “go into their world”, as VDH says involves a world that is fundamentally different. But where exactly are the lines between worlds drawn?

            I would say that, popularly, the bounds are tighter, more constrained, than those delineated by VDH.  An educated man, he can at least attempt to put voice to the other side.  I say popularly this line is drawn close-around most people because even the liberal side of things, to an average conservative-American (which I ain’t), is the realm of dark-dealings and occulted intentions; i.e. the realm of conspiracy.

            Currently this is typified by the unwillingness to “reach across the aisle” that has come with a shift from wanting to make policy to just playing politics in Congress.  Robert G. Kaiser takes this on in his new book Act of Congress: How America’s Essential Institution Works, and How it Doesn’t.  Kaiser has done good work here as he has done in his previous work So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government.  Lobbying and Congress being complimentary subjects, of course.

            The behavior of our Congresspersons simply caters to a public incapable or unwilling to think outside of their own narrow worldview.  In public opinion, Democrats (which I ain’t one neither) now consider Republicans to inhabit a bizarre world and vice versa.

            I have recently written about how similar Republicans and Democrats are in a big-picture view of things, in a broader world where the lines are more loosely drawn.  (Andrew Bacevich speaks well about this.)  What is scary is if actions start to match rhetoric and force becomes the only way to reconcile these supposed disparate worlds.