Conceptual Polarization in Blogging and Democracy

A note apropos of the important comments down here by Professors Deneen and McAllister . It’s true, as Prof. McAllister says, that “The tendency of theorists to declare is then made stronger in a blog format, as is the tendency to divide people into camps” — true too of the even larger, louder format of democratic public opinion. And Prof. Deneen scores a real point when he questions how precisely Walmart can be a relative bad but Obamacare an absolute one. I welcome the Lawlerian position that Walmart is less bad than Obamacare. But our ability to understand what about Walmart ought to be resisted, in whatever way — and I, crunchy symp, can’t say I want more Walmart — has got to involve more talk about what’s missing in our dramatization of the Walmart vs. Mom & Pop Stote ‘war’. If we wanted more of anything, why not the middle-rank grocery operations that extend the scope of locality a bit beyond one’s forty acres without exploding it completely? What troubles me a bit is the prospect of a grand bargain between the polarized parties: Walmarts everywhere and no shortage of Mom & Pop boutiques either. Admittedly the most troubling thing about this vision is the analogical vision it drums up of the huge wasteland between the All and the One that’s so characteristic of democratic life.