© 2011 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. It is interesting for me to watch someone read one of my opinion columns. Every facial expression means something. I try to judge where the person is in the column when they smile or a thunderhead forms. If I am lucky enough to speak to them afterwards I pay attention to what they say. I do not write my columns by committee and read the feedback by myself. I have ignored good advice and advice.Minimalists shrug. Some readers get the central point and add their thoughts, some of which I might not have considered. Often whatever I am writing about in a column does not hold the attention of a reader all the way through the column so those readers move on and I retreat behind my coffee cup. Luckily I am not where my column is read openly all that much.
I started writing columns in 1969 with a column about how all of my friends had eaten at McDonalds but I had not. My point was that in 1969 the McDonalds experience was central to most college students my age. Yet I was not a typical college student since I came to college without a car and without any urge to eat at McDonalds which was quite a distant walk away from the campus. See the connection?
Over the years in my columns I have told stories, argued correctly, argued on the wrong side and had to make amends and just flat told stories, some which might have been true. My only rule is that I do not miss deadlines because even with decades behind me I feel I am only as good as my next column. I do not want to be replaced by a lesser column that was submitted on time.
For a while I was writing two columns a week and in the last twenty years have cut back to one column a week. The good and bad of this writer’s life is I get lots of written feedback. I am grateful. However, in the last ten years I have noticed a real change in the feedback. Most comes as email and it has gotten very partisan.
I struggle with patience for the type of reader who reads not for the ideas but in great hopes of finding a “Gotcha” mistake. They can refuse to see several great points and fixate upon whether I used a semi-colon correctly. Oh well. Then there are the real point missers. I hate to kick ankles when so many readers are so generous with their thoughts, but there is one type of feedback I dislike: the point missers who reads a column and takes one small arcane point, not what the column is about, and they wax on and on.
It is a free country so they can do as they wish but I wonder why they put so much effort into missing the point each and every time. Also in the last couple of years the feedback to my columns reflects a microcosm of political debate. Here is the way to see that debate: truth and facts no longer count for anything, only points scored against the other side.
Example: a few years ago under the George Bush Presidency there was an attempt to raise the debt limit. All of the Democrats voted against the idea and all of the Republicans voted for it. Now, with a Democrat President pushing up the debt limit the Democrats are all for it and the Republicans against it.
This situational truth or situational facts lies at the heart of our country’s dysfunction. George Washington did not want partisan politics because he saw how truth and facts would be compromised by political battles. More so, the situational commentators look to who wrote the article and then they either look for what is right or what is wrong, depending on their duty to their partisanship.
There is the difference for me. I am always looking for some truth to add to my bag of truths. Regardless of the writer’s partisanship, I read to see what is right about the column. Our country needs less gotcha and more truth regardless of any partisanship.
Dr. Michael Swickard is co-host of radio talk show News New Mexico 6 to 9 a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations including KSNM-AM 570 in Las Cruces and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
