Partisanism is a binge of subjective gluttony. It clusters together those who already agree, absolving them of the rigors of validation, verification and justification. It discourages intellectual discipline as it promotes rationalization, eliminating the defense of ideas in favor of ad hominem refutations.
Partisanism rends our social fabric. It pulls apart the weave of thought and insight and viewpoint that bind a healthy, deliberative society. It rips apart minds in conference, dividing those who would otherwise bring ideas to market. It leaves the shroud of civilized discourse in tatters, unable to cover any of its adherents.
Partisanism weakens not only the group, but all of the constituents within. It softens the individual mind, relieving the need for deep scrutiny of self or others. It inspires an atrophy of empathy, curtailing our inborn reciprocities. It is deaf to the calls of reason, substituting a piper's tune of self-importance and imagined ethos. It casts aside the sharpening invigorations of confrontation and deliberation for easy vanities and empty congratulations.
Partisanism tears the social contract, pulling it apart shred by shred, as its enthusiasts toss aside all human commonalities with steadily mounting indifference, promoting themselves and demoting all others until no negotiations are possible. It dismisses obligation and enshrines privilege, exalting the arbitrary and eschewing the exigent.
Partisanism is hallucinogenic, invisible and odorless, populating the minds of its indulgents with self-aggrandizing illusions of moral rectitude and intellectual meliority. Its addicts see chimera who are not there, and can no longer see real people who are. It imbues faux beauty in one's cohorts, and even more faux pathos in those without. It inflates similarity within and difference beyond, like binoculars in a crowded room.
Partisanism is toxic. It fouls air shared by all. It nails door and window shut, burns away path and bridge. It creates animosities and hatreds out of nothing, pollutes discourse, makes enemies of colleagues, quarantines neighbors.
It spreads from mind to mind like empty song, crowding out meaning and reason and kinship. It stands alone among human inventions as the most phantasmal of weapons, made only of vacuous words - yet deadlier than plague.
Comments