We Know Less Than We Think
Armchair Pundits
Friends are over for dinner. We talk about pollution and the future of food, and is it morally right to eat meat (we’re having steak). Ice cream is served and it’s onto politics, Ukraine and possible corruption in Ukraine.
Things get a little heated — everyone has such strong opinions — and someone says, “If we’re going to talk about corruption, let’s talk about Joe Biden.”
My friend lobs this casually, like a hand grenade across the table.
“Let’s not,” I say and clear the plates.
Later I’m thinking: How did we get here?
At what point did people believe reading the news made them experts on all current affairs? It’s good to have opinions but when did we become a nation of armchair pundits?
Was it by watching the McLaughlin Group with pundits shouting over each other, turning current affairs into sport? Or when news became like entertainment following the end of the Fairness Doctrine, a US policy requiring licensed broadcasters to share both sides of stories of vital public interest? Or maybe it was the rise of Facebook, or when newspapers let all readers comment — a move publishers must bitterly regret.
Or perhaps it’s all of these things, and the change has happened imperceptibly over time…
