i remember in the 1980s angst over the “coarsening” of the American mind. i guess that was about obscenity and cuss words and pop-culture rather than classics and stuff. 1/

wherever you site yourself, whomever you vote for, contemporary political polarization has coarsened minds much more insidiously than all of that shit. 2/

we can’t think properly, can’t consider and weigh ideas, because we know the political valence or implication of every claim, and can’t avoid prejudging or overcompensating for prejudging it all. /fin