A response to Art Woodard's column
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TweetI am sympathetic to Mr. Woodard’s view and while he undoubtedly makes great points (in the Feb. 3rd issue of the CVN) about the power and insidiousness of prejudice--in the end his own argument succumbs to the very thing he is trying to rail against. The conclusion that “Spin is everything. Substance is irrelevant.” does not follow from the argument he laid out. Rather it comes from a popular but cynical worldview that everything and everyone is permanently divided and the master puppeteers keep us that way for their own gain. That is a vision of a society without standards for language or conduct that we do not--yet--inhabit. Let the existence of strong communities, like Haines, and the possibility, however rare, of civil discourse contradict that depressing vision.
We must, of course, be aware that our knowledge is always incomplete, our opinions biased and prone to reactionary rhetoric. But to say it’s all spin is to give up on the conversation entirely and on other people. It precludes the possibility of wisdom. Rather, “Spin is dangerous; substance is everything.”
Sincerely,
Joe Aultman-Moore
