Doonesbury - 1.14.2007

This is a funny Doonesbury today, but there are a few things that I take some issue with, especially in the 5th panel.

My primary beef is with the idea that “both” sides of an issue should be respected. It’s very popular lately to act as though every issue (scientific or otherwise) has two sides: a “conservative” side and a “liberal” side, a “right” side and a “wrong” side, a “bad” side and a “good” side. Some may say I’m reading too much into this, but I really don’t think I am. The idea that complex issues (like many of those named in panels six and seven) have only two sides is a very “political” way of viewing it, and a very incorrect way of looking at things.

This type of thinking often simplifies complex issues into two specific sides, both of which often have major flaws. Worst of all, it keeps people from actually thinking critically about an issue, allowing them to blindly go along with one “side”, usually dependent on their political leaning.

It’s ironic that the 3rd panel of this comic shows the student claiming that the evidence doesn’t line up with his beliefs. Dividing issues into two sides makes it easy to ignore all evidence that doesn’t support your claim, and is a primary reason for the huge drop in support for the war in Iraq over the past four years. Major evidence against the presence of WMDs existed in 2002 and 2003, and most truly objective analysts predicted at least five years of US occupation, but in the hysteria and desire for revenge left over from 9/11, most decided to ignore any evidence that went against their predetermined belief that Iraq was supporting terrorists and should be invaded.

The entire issue was neatly divided into two sides by the American public:

• Those who were against terrorists and loved America
• The “No Blood for Oil” crowd who hated George Bush and America and think the war is only about money.

With these being the two perceived “sides”, it’s no wonder that most of America fell into the first category. Now, four years later, everyone absolves themselves of blame because “they were lied to”. This is true to an extent, but the information we have now was available then. It’s very easy to blame someone else for misleading you, but anyone who bothered to look past the headlines would have seen huge amounts of evidence that there were no WMDs, obvious reasons to believe that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would never work together for any reason, and easily predictable outcomes that would surely come from this type of military action.

I’ve gone off on sort of a tangent here, so I’ll digress. I may seem a little overly passionate about something that seems trivial, but I really think that a lot of the ridiculousness in American government today stems from every issue being divided into two sides, relieving everyone of the need to think critically about anything. A large percentage of people just pick the side that their favorite politician/radio personality/best friend supports, and in the end, we all end up fighting over trivial issues while the important issues go completely unnoticed. If I was more of a conspiracy theorist, I would say that the politicians are causing this to happen on purpose, but unfortunately, I think we’re just doing it to ourselves.

I’ve written far more than I set out to write and covered far more topics that I intended, so I’ll end this post here. Please write comments, and let’s discuss.