A Little History
Added 2021-02-19 03:29:00 +0000 UTCBy some odd quirk of the YouTube algorithm, this excerpt from The Dick Cavett Show popped up on my watch list. It's just under 24 minutes, and I humbly suggest you watch it. It's a panel discussion assembled on June 7, 1968 -- the day after Robert Kennedy was assassinated. A few things are startlingly clear.
1. The major aspects of our cultural discussion -- race relations, economic disparity, gun violence, the violence of the American psyche -- have not changed very much. This is pretty disheartening, and shows that we understand our problems very well but lack the political will to solve them.
2. The corporate media, with its 24-hour news cycle, sensationalism, and rank partisanship, would never permit a discussion like this to air. Participants are thoughtful, and their arguments are given time to develop. Media corporations would argue that such non-theatrical discussion would bore a contemporary audience, with our short attention span. But who cultivated that lack of attention, and why?
3. Prof. David Schoenbrun discusses the murders of Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside the assassinations of Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Conservatives like to claim that political correctness stifles ideas and honesty. But would a consideration of Evers or Malcolm X ever make it past the conservatives and liberal centrists who dominate political discourse in this country?
