Hannity

I don't watch much T.V. but a couple nights ago I saw that a show called Hannity was on so I decided to give it a shot. I have to say it was just about the most appalling thing I've ever seen on T.V. The logic and thought process were atrocious. I know I wrote a similar blog a couple days back about Russell Pearce but this is a thought that's been developing in my little brain over the last few days so I wanted to give it another go.

Let's say that there is a complicated situation with one hundred people offering ideas and only one of them has a workable solution. Now lets say that these one hundred people start having debates with each other to try and create a following for their ideas. I think this is what was happening between Hannity and the guest that he had on his show the other night. It seems reasonable to me to think that while watching a political debate there is a good chance that neither person will have a workable solution to the issue that they are discussing. However, any time two people debate a topic there is a good chance one is going to appear more reasonable than the other. I think it is very important not to confuse 'He looks more reasonable than his opponent' with 'He has a workable solution to an issue.'

While watching Hannity it was very obvious that the political opponent that was invited to speak on his show had weak arguments. He was easily made to look foolish and, I suppose rightfully so, soundly defeated in the short "debate" (If you want to call it that. It was more like a one sided attack). Hannity then proceeds to push his own agenda without a smidgen of critical analysis. The logic seemed to be that since he defeated the leftist guest in a "debate", he must be correct. That is what I found so atrocious about the show. Without any reflection on his own ideas he carefully tries to lead the viewer into confusing, 'He looks more reasonable than his opponent' with 'He has a workable solution.' That's dangerous.

I'm admittedly a layman when it comes to this kind of thing. In the words of C.S. Lewis, I'm not trying to understand, I'm trying to misunderstand a little less completely. I don't know what the answers are but I know that we aren't going to find them if we focus all of our energy into tearing down the ideas of others instead of developing good ideas of our own. Be careful what you come to believe when you watch T.V. There is a lot of bad philosophy out there and it can't be made into something good by proving that it's better than something worse.