Time mag’s person of the year — you. The cover was a mirror; you looked at the cover and saw yourself. “You” populate the internet and blogs and become a sort of democracy, not yet a functional, but a structural internet democracy (Dershowitz’s distinction). (I forecast a pure electronically mediated democracy in the United States in 25 years in an article I wrote in 1980. “Education and Electronically Mediated Democracy.” In Education: A Time for Decisions. Ed. by K.M. Redd & A.M. Harkins. Washington: World Future Society, 1980. Pp. 122-131.) A blog is a private newspaper by a private journalist and publisher. You! Bloggers and emailers have found a structure for their views. This structure attracts deliberative minds, as well as the mindless. There is a lot of garbage, especially the effluvia of the rotting mindless who make spam and viruses, but the search engines can help bridge that offal. The deliberative mind puts itself into deliberative contexts, where a new definition of competence is required to deal with selective exposure, selective attention, and selective retention. Exposure to difficult, deliberative mass media expreiences. Selecting programs and extending the time of attention to the level at which concentration is achieved. Retaining the more signicant content in succinct notes and mnemonic devices, and separating out the bias of the source in comparison or contrast to the receiver’s slant. For example, I can listen to the Fox news shows and take the good and leave the bias. Actually, the Fox news show I watch has many good, non-political segments, which the other news shows seldom have. I am exposed to their bias and can test my thinking thereby.I elect the base of Bush voters as The Nondeliberative Mind of the Year. Our President is one who could not conceivably have been elected by the deliberative minds as described above. He is the creature of nondeliberative minds. I do not blame Mr. Bush for getting elected the first time. I taught in West Texas where he got his start. He discovered there the ease with which he could demagogue himself to political power, down-home, plain-speaking to the evangelical heart what that heart wanted to hear. What worked in West Texas also was legal tender in the nation.
I believe that the level of diction I require in a political leader is different from that which the majority has elected. Kerry lost as Bush was elected, to a great extent because the level of articulateness of Bush matched a base base. (Mind, there are two meanings of base.) Da Base!
