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Should I take Real Clear Politics with a grain of salt?? or are there some valuable topics to read? (Original Post) a kennedy Jun 2017 OP
Decide for yourself. Igel Jun 2017 #1

Igel

(35,309 posts)
1. Decide for yourself.
Sun Jun 25, 2017, 03:30 PM
Jun 2017

You're a grown up.

Mostly it's a collection of metasites. They're a bit different, and their mix changes a bit from time to time (or at least me, in my personal bubble, perceive it so). Here's my take.

The education site has some neat stuff; some stuff I disagree with, but if I want to know what others are thinking or planning or just what's happening outside your own state it's valuable; is it complete? Hell, no, I don't even know what "complete" would look like. But you don't need to believe everything you read, you don't need to agree with everything you read or ensure that everything you read agrees with you. Or other community members. I do think, though, that to be a reasonable person you have to reasonably know what other reasonable people can and do think, and why: At that point we can talk and maybe find a decent compromise on that issue or at least not think each other are cretins so we can work together on other issues. In other words, no scorched earth; I'm an education professional, and this is the kind of thing I do with educational policies and procedures weekly, monthly, yearly. I've known many reasonable people right of center and left of center, and many unreasonable people, as well.

The religion site I typically disagree with pretty much all the time. Yet I look at it, because (a) sometimes I find something useful or reasonably challenging what I think and (b) while I inevitably live in a bubble, I don't like bubbles and try at the very least to look at things outside of my bubble (knowing that the bubble is going to seriously distort what I perceive). Again, I may not agree with others, but I can see them as reasonable people with different beliefs, not as heathens out to destroy all that's right and good because they're just evil and do only evil things for only evil reasons.

The science site I typically find spot on. Some articles I ignore and if you asked me what in them, sorry, even info about their titles is flushed. Often I find things posted there reposted here in the science group. (Same for realclear religion in the religion group, but less often.) There are anti-liberal science articles, by which I mean science articles arguing against some views held mostly by left-of-center folk; there are also anti-RW science articles, with the same sort of definition--in each case, not so much, though.

The policy site I've heard described as (rabidly) RWer. I find it right-of-center, but that can mean two things. Either they think that's what you should believe (or what they think their readership wants) or they think that's what you should know others believe given the rest of the media climate. As on the religious site, I've sometimes read principled criticism of what I believe, and sometimes have to rethink my beliefs or confront a clash I can't resolve (or even change my belief). On the other hand, I've read things describing LePen and Orban's views that I vehemently disagreed with, but didn't get the idea I was being preached to; it was more like a lecture, explanation, and that's never a bad thing if you actually know what you believe and why. I'm a firm believer that "understand" doesn't mean "agree with".

The politics site, like the world site, often includes things that never make it here. They're like the policy site: If you're easily offended, then it's rabid RW because some articles don't preach to the choir and say things that are important for your narrative, things that happen or are said that don't support the narrative or fit in the bubble. It's worth noting, however, that often the politics and policy sites include things that take some pretty harsh tones and mount arguments about some right-of-center views, but those would pass unnoticed as irrelevant to a person and therefore simply not existing. Again, we all live in bubbles. (A recent link on their policy site http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust-2017/tribalists-and-ideologues/, for instance, is pretty much non-partisan but I suspect many would find offensively anti-progressive. Bubbles distort perceptions for everybody. Assuming their data are accurate--something I'm not completely sure of--this makes sense of a lot of observations I've had, just like the "L-R spectrum is simplistic, it's really a social or power spectrum x economic spectrum did when I ran across that back in the early '80s.)

Don't look at the books, history, etc., sites. Vita brevis and all that.

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