Conviction

Are there any American institutions left that are capable of reconciling freedom of speech with the responsibility to speak reasonably, to limit self-expression to less hurtful forms than we've experienced in the last couple of decades? At one time, I believed the American criminal justice system, grounded in the Constitution, was such an institution. Now, I'm not sure. The courts seem to be politicized. Even the Constitution itself is the subject of sophomoric chalk talks, foisted off on television viewers as political analysis, while other commentators -- just as opinionated -- decorate their rants with lines better men spoke in better times. Is it any wonder that by now we view other opinions as, essentially, unreconcilable with our own?

The truth is unlikely to come to us from polemicists on the right or on the left. It will come -- if it comes at all-- tentatively, in the form of a dialogue, a collaboration. And the best collaborations take place inside the same skull, inner dialogues, examinations of conscience, that proceed haltingly, full of doubt. By their very nature, they must lack conviction, but lack of conviction is popular culture's unforgivable sin. That such a dialogue can occur any longer in the context of American pop culture is doubtful to say the least.