Ode to Limbaugh

It must be hard; isn’t it?
To take your view of reality
Take from the one small vantage point you see
And project it out past the horizon

It must be hard; isn’t it?
To surround yourself with those who think the same, or say they do
So much so that you can’t even picture who
Might not fit into your fantasy

It must be hard; isn’t it?
To believe in sides, in such down-to-the-bone wrongness
That a collaborative effort becomes a battle, won by numbers and attrition
Not likely to cross that in-the-sand division

Well, it is, isn’t it?
You’re not the only one, but it does include you
Living in your own world of reality and not-
Just like Rush Limbaugh, perhaps?

I realized that despite knowing the name, I had never actually listened to Limbaugh’s show, nor heard any extended interviews with or by him. As “research” for this piece I watched a couple of the free video clips on his site (nothing from his actual show; unfortunately, you need to be a member for that). I will freely admit that my reactions (when I was paying attention; I’m pretty tired today) went something like this:

  1. Fairly normal sensible talking (with the ego of the character he plays), punctuated by
  2. Moments of sheer astonishment and WTFery, and then some occasional
  3. Places where what he’s/they’re saying makes me a bit uncomfortable because it’s something I disagree with yet is at least plausible, and then
  4. Some obvious adjusting of his comments to “incorporate” new information but make the same point…as I have to admit I have done.1

The takeaway message? It is a problem that I am this under-informed and under-involved. Whether or not I manage to change and/or decide to change is a different question.

Part of Poem-a-Day 2013. Title donated by John W.

  1. “What you’re talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write ‘and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese’, and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn’t. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false.” -from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 21. ↩︎