I'm Right and You're an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up

James Hoggan (with Grania Litwin) I'm Right and You're an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up. Gabriola Island (British Columbia), Canada: New Society Publishers.Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyOne of the many annoyances of living in the beginning of the twenty-first century is the frequency with which we are exposed to superlatives. Barack Obama is the greatest orator in American history! Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt presidential candidate in American history! Donald Trump is the greatest/worst [fill in the blank] in American history! Nor are Americans the only ones whose profound ignorance of history - American or any other - contributes to the willingness to indulge in sloganeering which turns unpleasant historical events into unprecedented tragedies and modest achievements into world historical triumphs.Our overexposure to hyperbole makes it difficult to distinguish the merely good from the magnificent or the merely bad from the catastrophic. So it is that we are regularly exposed to claims that human relations from global politics to casual social contacts are fraught with ill-will, incivility and intolerance of opinions and interests other than our own.There are a few profoundly evil people in the world, but if you think you're surrounded by them, you probably need to change your own psyche. - Roger ConnerAs though to compensate for our chronic bad manners and, of course, the genuinely loathsome rhetoric that demonizes this or that ethnicity, religion or political belief, we are beginning to see efforts made in our schools, workplaces and, of course, the pervasive and invasive social media to bring us back to attitudes a little closer to reason, reciprocity and mutual respect. It's about time.We seem to have become almost immune to or, worse, excited by demagoguery that justifies everything from tribal-based terrorism to horrifying acts of recrimination and retribution against people who demonstrably intend to do us harm. And that's not even raising the fearmongering, dissembling and attempts at character assassination that have become common in election campaigns in even the most stable Western liberal democracies!Indeed, so distorted are our coffee shop and water cooler conversations (never mind the scripted boorishness of talk radio) by impassioned and polarized opinions that, in response, I expect any day now to learn that some celebrity, civic organization or morality movement has declared a war on hatred. After all, never before in human history have people displayed such venom and vitriol toward others ... at least, not since the last time.IMeanwhile, cooler heads, kinder hearts and soft-spoken advocates for constructive conversations are offering much needed advice. Prominent among them are academics and intellectuals including (mostly American) pragmatists and somewhat more esoteric European critical theorists-some of whom have touched up against both Marx Immanuel Kant and, not surprisingly, emerged the better for it. The lead hand in that particular idea factory is, of course, J?rgen Habermas (1971/2001; 1979; 2000).Habermas' analysis of how to have discussions that actually lead somewhere other than entrenching the prejudices of the participants has, alas, one fundamental flaw: it relies on people who are willing to engage in good faith dialogues/negotiations aimed at resolving disputes rationally, equitably, without coercion and in the common interest. Finding parties to such an ideal process seems unlikely in today?s political climate whether we are dealing with a subway extension in Toronto, a deployment of NATO forces to Latvia or, in extremis, a two-state solution to the Palestinian question.Setting our sights somewhat lower, then, we come upon a new set of suggestions by James Hoggan that purports to suggest how we might get to the point where good will might be encouraged and genuine progress, especially toward addressing the overarching problem of environmental devastation might be made. …

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