Thank you for a reminder of Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. "People, he insists, crave bread, spectacle, and authority—not the burden of choice." Yes! Most choices aren't made without a loss of innocence. But innocence past the age of majority is predicated on an either-or, dualistic worldview and not a triadic worldview offered by freedom and forgiveness. The inquisitor today would adopt what William Cavanaugh in Torture and Eucharist calls "the imagination of the nation-state," the worldview of the bishops early in Pinochet's rule who failed to challenge Pinochet's protection of Chilean innocence and his attack on Chilean democracy. Bread and circuses (and authority)!
You draw the connection well: bread, spectacle, and authority are still the easiest substitutes for freedom, but as you note, they depend on a dualistic worldview that leaves no room for forgiveness or responsibility. The link to Cavanaugh and Pinochet is especially telling—reminding us that the Grand Inquisitor’s logic persists whenever the state cloaks protection in innocence and attacks democracy in the name of order. - Thanks for your response, Bryce.
How can there be any remote possibility of agreeing on anything when the Moldy Orange Demon owns a website which publishes wall to wall lies. Namely Truth Social - even the title of the website is a lie.
What if never-ending argument is the principal vector of the now psychotic dis-ease that is destroying US culture, or what remains of it.
Argument sustains democracy, but, yes, it can also corrode it when it hardens into noise. Deborah Tannen is right that the “argument culture” can make every difference feel like combat. Yet without argument, democracy is reduced to grievance or to tolerance, and collapses into either silence or shouting.
Civility isn’t about being nice; it’s about refusing to abandon judgment in the face of disagreement. The challenge isn’t to escape conflict but to distinguish between real debate and manufactured outrage.
Tyranny doesn’t just exploit lies; it feeds on our fatigue with truth. That is why democracy, like faith, makes sense only with doubt and denial, when certainty gives way to the hard work of argument.
The real peril isn’t too much argument but turning disagreement into a brawl and, on the other hand, mistaking hurt feelings for disrespect.
Thank you for a reminder of Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. "People, he insists, crave bread, spectacle, and authority—not the burden of choice." Yes! Most choices aren't made without a loss of innocence. But innocence past the age of majority is predicated on an either-or, dualistic worldview and not a triadic worldview offered by freedom and forgiveness. The inquisitor today would adopt what William Cavanaugh in Torture and Eucharist calls "the imagination of the nation-state," the worldview of the bishops early in Pinochet's rule who failed to challenge Pinochet's protection of Chilean innocence and his attack on Chilean democracy. Bread and circuses (and authority)!
You draw the connection well: bread, spectacle, and authority are still the easiest substitutes for freedom, but as you note, they depend on a dualistic worldview that leaves no room for forgiveness or responsibility. The link to Cavanaugh and Pinochet is especially telling—reminding us that the Grand Inquisitor’s logic persists whenever the state cloaks protection in innocence and attacks democracy in the name of order. - Thanks for your response, Bryce.
How can there be any remote possibility of agreeing on anything when the Moldy Orange Demon owns a website which publishes wall to wall lies. Namely Truth Social - even the title of the website is a lie.
What if never-ending argument is the principal vector of the now psychotic dis-ease that is destroying US culture, or what remains of it.
http://www.deborahtannen.com/the-argument-culture
What if the Republican Noise Machine is the leading edge vector of the collective US psychosis?
Such is the proposition mooted by David Brock in his book The Republican Noise Machine - and other books too including The Fox Effect.
Check out Network of lies by Brain Stelter too.
There are many more such books.
Argument sustains democracy, but, yes, it can also corrode it when it hardens into noise. Deborah Tannen is right that the “argument culture” can make every difference feel like combat. Yet without argument, democracy is reduced to grievance or to tolerance, and collapses into either silence or shouting.
Civility isn’t about being nice; it’s about refusing to abandon judgment in the face of disagreement. The challenge isn’t to escape conflict but to distinguish between real debate and manufactured outrage.
Tyranny doesn’t just exploit lies; it feeds on our fatigue with truth. That is why democracy, like faith, makes sense only with doubt and denial, when certainty gives way to the hard work of argument.
The real peril isn’t too much argument but turning disagreement into a brawl and, on the other hand, mistaking hurt feelings for disrespect.