January 6, 2009 – Izzy deserves to be in the show I think. He is a ham. This shot is going into the show, also.
I got a ton of interesting e-mail earlier this week when I undertook one of my favorite leisure time activities, bashing Wal-Mart and its hoary, boxy, corporatist, tacky and individuality-smothering impact its had on our towns, standards, lives and jobs. Lots of people agreed with me, many didn’t. Lots of people love Wal-Mart, and find it convenient and inexpensive. I completely understand that, even if it’s not my choice.
I don’t fault anybody for shopping at Wal-Mart or anywhere else they like. Not my business to tell people where to shop. It’s interesting, though a small number of people wrote and said they could no longer read my books or visit the blog because I was criticizing Wal-Mart.
“I have loved your books and followed your blog. But having read your comments on Wal-Mart, I have to say, “goodbye, Jon. I will be reading you no more.”
It seems to me – all you have to do is watch CNN or Fox for five minutes to see this – is that the idea of civil disagreement is fading in America, along with good and secure jobs. (The Wal-Marting of America. Sorry.)
If people can only read sites and books in which the author totally agrees with them, then they should move on, and good riddance. It’s an incomprehensible idea to me that somebody could only want to read somebody they totally agree with, and if there is a disagreement, they have to part company. In fact, I’ve never quite gotten the point of “left-right” people. Why bother to read somebody you always agree with? These people ought to read some Thomas Jefferson, and get some ideas from the American Revolution.
Jefferson’s idea was not that people should only read what they agree with, but that they needed to read what they didn’t agree with even more. That’s how a democracy ought to work, a mixing of ideas and opinions. The blog has grown and grown and I am not concerned about losing readers. I think the Internet, chaotic as it is, is democratizing. We all get to be Thomas Paine, to write out pamphlets, tell our stories. I will keep it up. I don’t want anybody reading me who can’t bear to be disagreed.
They will be happier elsewhere, and so will I.