: Image versus record…The new barbarians…
George Will smacks down the new barbarians:
Life has been called a series of habits disturbed by a few thoughts. Civil society is kept civil by certain habits of restraint. Inflammatory political ideas can overturn habits, sometimes for the better, usually not. But no discernible ideas, at least none that are more than appetites tarted up as ideas, account for the vandalism by political overreachers of both parties.
Each vandal seems to think that his or her passions are their own excuse for existing. As Santayana said, such thinking is the defining trait of barbarians.
The flaw in this otherwise interesting column is Will’s partisan suggestion that all this barbarism began with the borking of Robert Bork. But, a few moments spent with a good history book should cure that erroneous thought. Our political discourse and decorum has always crisscrossed that thin boundary separating civil society from the howling wilderness.
UPDATE (11:28 a.m.): Joshua Marshall mentions the same phenomenon in regard to “hating” presidents.
UPDATE (3:24 p.m.): Outside the Beltway rounds up the insularity/groupthink meme.
