We are living in a time of great dissensus, when political arguments are not merely rife but emotionally and verbally, if not actually, violent. People who are certain of the urgency of climate change often treat doubters as if they were hopelessly stupid flat-worlders. People who oppose abortion tend to consider those who feel otherwise as little less than murderers. Run down the list of the leading issues—and an issue, recall, is a subject still in the flux of controversy—and one discovers similarly tempestuous reactions, pro and con, everywhere.
Not that I am without my own political views. The English historian A.J.P. Taylor once claimed to have “extreme views, weakly held.” My own position is moderate views, extremely held. Whenever the subject of politics comes up in one or another of my social circles, I always jump in to offer a label warning: “I have never lost a political argument,” I say, adding, “which would be more impressive if I didn’t have to admit that neither have I ever won one.” As Jonathan Swift averred, one cannot hope to reason people out of those things they haven’t been reasoned into, which often enough includes politics.
