The rather "heroic" image, above, pictures Andy Kessler, who writes opinion columns for The Wall Street Journal. Kessler's Wikipedia write-up tells us that Kessler is "an American businessman, investor, and author," who has "worked for about 20 years as a research analyst, investment banker, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager."
Kessler's "Inside View" column, published in the December 23, 2024, edition of The Journal, was titled, "Division Isn't So Bad." In fact, according to Kessler, "this country is strong precisely because we don't all think the same way."
In general, I am not much of a fan of what I read on The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages. However, I agree with Kessler's comment that our political divisions are "not so bad." I will even go so far as to say that divided opinion within the body politic is a "feature not a bug."
If we are willing to admit that no one, actually, is consistently, and always "right," and if we agree that none of us can, always, know the true dimensions of the challenges we face, nor the right way to react to them, then we should, as Kessler suggests, applaud division. "Division" gives us a reason to debate and discuss the issues - and then, at least sometimes - to find a satisfactory resolution to our differences.
Hannah Arendt, my favorite political thinker, celebrates "plurality." If you'll click this link, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will provide you with a brief summary of her thinking on that topic. Arendt is using different language, but her celebration of "plurality" is another argument that "division is not so bad."
Both Voltaire and those who drew up our United States Constitution also seem to agree with the proposition that "division is not so bad." While its provenance is contested, Voltaire is generally given credit for the following statement: "While I wholly disapprove of what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Hopefully, our own First Amendment is so well-known that there is actually no need to elaborate upon its absolute defense of the right to free speech - in other words, the right to disagree about virtually everything.
If it is true that "division is not so bad," then what is bad?
What is bad is how easily our politics can slip into a denunciation of those with whom we disagree, and how quickly we can then come to believe that there aren't "two sides" to the issues (or even more) and that the only side we need to recognize is our own side!
Our ability to believe that division is "not so bad" depends upon our sense that we, individually, are just as powerful as those on the other side of the division. If we don't have that sense, I am suggesting that we need to do something to restore ourselves to a position in which we do not doubt our power to advance our position against those with a different one. Once we are in such a position, and once we can reliably assume that our positions have a reasonable chance of prevailing, through public debate and discussion - through our "politics" - then we can really be confident in applauding Kessler's contention: "Division is not so bad."
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