I wrote a book review recently in which I went out of my way to criticize a dumb and bigoted interviewer on a cable channel –  Fox News – who repeatedly questioned whether a Muslim scholar – one with four Phd degrees in religious studies – could possibly write an honest book about Jesus Christ.  This was offensive to me on many levels, and I said so. A woman on Facebook immediately wrote me a sad message saying it was obvious I was a liberal, on the “left” and why didn’t I just come out and say so, rather than claiming not to be political all the time. She couldn’t follow my work any more, she said, I had deviated from her dogma.

Whenever I express any kind of political opinion – I don’t often do it – I get messages like that, and they are sad. In the Republic whose founders fought for and invented the idea of civil disagreement, disagreement has become unacceptable. If you are on the right, it is heresy to the left, and vice versa. I answered this woman, I said I refused to label myself so narrowly or permit anyone else to label me so foolishly. There are many more ways to look at the world than “left” or “right” and my ideas often cross from one boundary to the other, as anyone with a functioning mind would.

I was very drawn to conservative ideology – smaller government, an end to the welfare bureaucracy, control of runaway entitlements – until the movement was hijacked by ignorant bigots and sexists and religious fanatics. I believe strongly in women’s rights and I believe, as Jesus Christ did, that our humanity is defined by how we treat the poor (not just animals). What does this make me? I am very drawn to libertarian ideology that permits people to make their own choices about life and death.  I like socialist ideas about health care and paid child care. What label fits all of that? Once I labeled myself,  my mind would shrivel up like a prune – just watch the news.

If I were a well-known gasbag I might have written a book called “The Closing Of The American Mind,” just as Alan Bloom did. His thesis is that American educators and politicians are teaching the young how not to think, just as Fox News and MSNBC teaches their viewers not to think. And isn’t that the point – lazy viewers don’t have to think at all, just nod their heads and fume.

Our media and political worlds are shrinking, so are our minds. In Jefferson’s democratic melting pot, we can now watch only the news and opinion that we agree with, all other thought becomes the enemy, to be dismissed and ignored. What will our children think of democracy when they see their angry and obsessed parents watching cable news shows and raging at the “other.” How strange, I always urged my daughter to listen to people whose ideas made her uneasy, not just hang around those who echoed her own.

I get messages every day that begin with “even though I sometimes disagree with you, I  read your books and like your blog anyway”, as if writing something they don’t agree with is some sort of crime they are overlooking. As if they are doing me a great favor to condescend to pay attention to me even though I have the gall to have my own ideas. And why on earth would I only watch and read ideas I agree with unless I simply wanted my mind to shrink and wither, like the roots of some ancient oak tree?

When I had to reduce the size of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, a score of people told me they were removing my books from their homes, canceling their subscriptions, leaving the blog forever.  I had displeased them, I needed to be banished from their consciousness, another legacy of the lefting and righting of American thought. This is the closing of the American mind, we have learned to hate what is different, unpleasant,  unfamiliar to us.

Whenever I do express a political idea – I just loved Wendy Davis and her pink sneakers during the famed Texas filibuster – I get messages from people, often long-time readers, who tell me they can no longer read my blog, buy my books, or subscribe to my website. “You said you weren’t political,” said one, “you are obviously a liberal.” This often happens when I raise questions about the animal rescue movement, or express the idea that we can’t love our dogs too much.

Thomas Jefferson thought the most sacred duty in a democracy is to listen to ideas we don’t like and agree with, and share ours, and come together in the middle. In our time, disagreement is a capital offense, there is no sharing of ideas, no coming together. If you express a single thought one might disagree with, then you are quickly labeled as being only one of two things – on the left or on the right. And then, everything you do becomes intolerable, the American equivalent of book burning. This happens in the animal world online just as much as in Washington or on the hysterical political blogs and cable news rantings.

To me, this kind of labeling has always been a fascist trait, not a democratic one. When I lived in New York and New Jersey, it was hard to have any kind of conversation that didn’t include raging hatred for President George W. Bush. When I moved upstate, I had to hear this from the other side – it is Barack Obama who is a monster. This is what labeling does, it’s harvest is anger, hatred, narrowness and ignorance. We never learn to respect the other side, only how to dismiss it and  hate it. What truly open mind would enter a system like this or support it? When it comes to politics, I am an enthusiastic cross dresser, sometimes I like the right, sometimes the left, sometimes even the  libertarians and the socialists (gasp!)

I will never label myself so narrowly, I will never submit to other people’s labeling of me. My wish for myself is that I will always be open to ideas I don’t like and that make me uncomfortable, because in my life, those have often been the ones I most needed to hear. People who like my work can support me but they can’t really teach me. Only challenge and disagreement can do that, and when I am no longer able to hear disagreement, then I will have experienced the first death, the one of the mind. People who like to think are very welcome here, people who live in labels ought best to elsewhere, before they have to burn my books or cancel their subscriptions.