Here is an interesting New York Times "story" (I don't know what to call it) about the political polarization of our society. Are people more partisan than they used to be, or is there the same amount of partisanship but more outlets for it? We now have talk radio, cable television, and the Internet. The fact that we're observing more partisanship may fool us into thinking that there is more partisanship. Do you see what I'm getting at?
As for whether it's a bad thing for our society to be so politically polarized, I don't know. There are almost always two views on a given topic: the progressive and the conservative. Progressives want to remake society from the ground up, in accordance with some utopian blueprint. They have little (if any) respect for tradition, ways of life, habits, and customs. The end, in their view, justifies the means. If this means altering or abolishing traditional institutions such as marriage, the family, education, and religion, so be it. Conservatives have no vision of their own to implement; they simply want to thwart wild-eyed progressive plans, many of which, conservatives are convinced, will make things worse rather than better.
There could be no better illustration of the difference between progressives and conservatives than the topic of homosexual "marriage." Indeed, I would say that this is the acid test of whether someone is a progressive or a conservative. What say you, dear blog reader?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 