Robert Wright thinks so (here's Derek Thompson). I've been wondering more and more what the reference point is for those who lament the alleged moral bankruptcy or cultural famines of modernity because it seems like Wright's "original idea of America" is, at best, a pleasant fiction. Yes, it is true that perhaps today's world of pick-and-choose media allows people to insulate themselves from reality, but that was also true 150 years ago. In Memphis, for example, there were (I think) seven different newspapers that allowed readers to wallow in confirmation bias to their hearts' content. Indeed, during the Memphis riot of early May, 1866, members of the mob hoisted the editor of the Avalanche on their shoulders and threatened to burn the offices of the Post, which was a pro-union newspaper in town (to his credit, the editor of the Avalanche discouraged them).

Perhaps, though, people yearn for the days when our national news options were more or less limited to Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings. This concerns me because it translates to a yearning for the days when We (whoever "we" are) controlled the conversation and didn't have to worry about competition from dissenters like Fox News. On Fox News, here are David Henderson and James Otteson.

Finally, Nick Gillespie makes an important point on how left-wing condescension short-circuits meaningful discussion (HT: Steve Horwitz). It reinforces my belief that American conservatives and liberals are like Coke and Pepsi: they taste different, but at the end of the day, they're basically the same thing. Conservatives believe we can turn our guns outward and plan the lives of foreigners; liberals believe we can turn our guns inward and plan the lives of Americans. To borrow from Bryan Caplan, this is to-may-to, to-mah-to for libertarians whose relevant political spectrum extends from the totalitarian Joseph Stalin to the anarchist Murray Rothbard. Along these lines, here's F.A. Hayek explaining why he is not a conservative. And here's George Orwell's classic essay "Politics and the English Language."