If one does not understand that those whose beliefs one despises believe them just as one believe one’s own, with the same sense of logical clarity, moral decency, and threatened sensitivity, one does not understand humanity, history, conflict, or even, perhaps, the nature of reason.

For Galbraith to perpetuate the idea that whomever we disagree with we ought to fault for evil intentions or selfishness is odd; I am astonished at the statistically-indefensible reductionism of it. Tens of millions of individuals aggregated into a mass and crushed beneath a patronizing quip, the thrust of which is simple: if you don’t agree with me, it’s because you’re a bad person and your arguments are just pretexts. […]

Here is the question one must ask: is it possible to imagine someone with a good heart and a sound or even brilliant mind who disagrees with our political beliefs? If no one with a good heart or mind can disagree with us, why should we permit the enfranchisement of those who disagree? If we know what is right, what principle of pluralism could possibly obstruct our implementation of what is right? This is the justification, of course, which all totalitarians use: why let evil or stupid inferior-types restrain our progress?

If we say that we can imagine such a person -or better, that we know such people, as I do-, we’ll see at once how silly Galbraith is here. (I might add that Galbraith is engaged in an old sort of moral philosophy, too: the ad hominem insulting of opponents to avoid the difficulty of empathy, engagement, and persuasion).

~ the ever-eloquent mills