Thursday, October 11, 2007

Two Americas

One of the most interesting things about being right-wing fella in a socialist town is the look of shock and horror that comes when I express an opinion. Nowadays, in our infinitely personalized media universe, it can get difficult to find a discouraging word. This gets to James Lileks' idea of non-contiguous information streams (not to be clicked if you find right-wing opinions traumatizing). If you get all your news from the New York Times and the Huffington Post, you are living in a very different world from someone who reads only the Wall Street Journal and Pajamas Media. It is completely understandable that I sound like a crazy person.

Apparently we are now taking this a step further. Virginia Postrel has an illuminating article on how real estate zoning laws are creating actual non-contiguous worlds.

2 comments:

Kalinda said...

Yeah but the look of shock and horror comes from the fact that they associate you with the current white house administration, which frankly these days most people who call themselves conservatives are at odds with --predominantly because the ideals of fiscal conservatism have been tossed out the window, n'est pas?

Robbo said...

Oh, I started souring on Bush around the time he introduced Steel Tariffs. What was that '02? My read is that the disconnect goes beyond antipathy to any particular political figure. There are views on society, the environment, the economy, and foreign policy that are not questioned in certain circles.