Today I got into my car, turned on the radio, and started listening to Fox News, the only station I ever listen to.
This morning’s program really freaked me out, though. Instead of the angry, pugnacious commentators, I heard mellifluous, apologetic tones that insistently brought to mind the word Liberal. Then I realized that my husband had been in the car and changed the station.
I wish there were a station for fiery, self – assured liberals. A radio station you listen to while driving shouldn’t be making you sleepy.
Clarissa's Blog 
I realized today what the engineering problem was that has upset the political structure of Western culture, and that it may be in the notion that one cannot be authoritarian (or even authoritative it seems) whilst being extremely liberal. It seems to me, from recently blasts of wind/knowledge though my head that I have always been both of these things at the same time, but people see one side of me and register it as right-wing and then they see another side and think I tricked them.
The idea that to be liberal one must be extremely mild and symbolically gendered in the mode of the Christian-feminine type, or that by being firm and (yes even) authoritarian, one is taking the side of a masculine purposefulness or agenda, has led to the complete and entire corruption of Western civilisation. A well-rounded or broad based personality simply cannot function in it anymore. At least I cannot, because I am too much what I am.
How can you function if only half of yourself at any one time is permitted to operate publicly — and then when people catch sight of the other side, they accuse you of fraudulence?
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That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to articulate, thank you.
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It’s a unfortunate side effect of Cartesian duality and dialectical thinking; you can be one or the other but never both. If your soul hasn’t been centrifuged, you don’t exist.
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It’s really not dialectical though, is it? This binarisation pertains to static thinking, but dialectics is by its nature dynamic and transformative.
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As for the radio, I channel surf incessantly because too much time listening to anything will cause me to tune out and nothing is more dangerous than tuning out in the middle of bumper to bumper rush hour traffic.
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It’s really not dialectical though, is it? This binarisation pertains to static thinking, but dialectics is by its nature dynamic and transformative.
Well, no. A lot of this is going through a motion of a dialectic to arrive at one or another side in a dualism. For example, I knew a lot of people who went from one extreme to another, but pretty much had the same philosophical underpinnings throughout. Or people who proclaim that they’re “moderate moderates” like they’ve thought about it, but upon examination they veer so strongly in one direction they effectively function like a partisan or they’re forever triangulating between two points to end up at the mathematical middle regardless of what it actually does. It is why most debates function as exercises rather than a genuine inquiry.
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Dialectics involves an interchange and sublation.
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You cannot expect to hear fiery, self-assured liberals, because liberals tone down and edulcorate everything. You can barely hear and read some more self-assured voices to the left of liberals on the radio. I can only think of one or two examples, in French.
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Yes, they edulcorate and the result is unpalatable. I always feel I’m about to choke on so much sweetness.
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Clarissa, your intellectual detachment amazes me. I could not listen to Fox News without getting so uncontrollably angry that I would not be able to drive safely.
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I think it helps if you think of it as entertainment. That’s what I do. EBOLA AT OUR SHORES! BENGHAZI! WAR ON CHRISTMAS (COMING SOON)! So much drama in your news, what’s not to like?
NPR. on the other hand, bores me to death.
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It’s really great entertainment. Every day, there is a new topic of fake outrage. And the talk show hosts repeat “Seriously? I mean, seriously?” dozens of times in a row in a tone of offended innocence. And the topic of fake outrage are what we call in Russian “sucked out of a finger.”
Hilarious!
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“Clarissa, your intellectual detachment amazes me. I could not listen to Fox News without getting so uncontrollably angry that I would not be able to drive safely.”
– It was angering at first. VERY angering. But after a while, you begin seeing patterns in the newscasts, and the whole thing becomes very very funny.
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Again, unlimited medium-bitrate Internet + portable streaming player + 3.5mm stereo patch cable + car stereo with aux input = you can have your own radio station in the car … 🙂
It works considerably better these days than a car radio with shortwave reception.
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It just sounds like too much trouble. I could just go to books on tapes when I get bored with these radio stations.
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