Consider these propositions: (I’d never heard of touring game shows until I saw this logo.)
- Bush sucks.
- The Iraq War sucks.
- Global warming is real.
- Evolution is real.
- We need renewable energy.
- America’s health care system sucks.
- Things are getting worse.
- Things have to change.
Chances are you answered yes to all these propositions. A vast majority of Americans now answers yes to all these propositions.
What does this mean? It means something very important.
There’s no longer a mere majority which agrees with these propositions.
There’s a vast majority, a gigantic majority — a consensus. (Rob Voerman created the art on the left, called Consensus, in 1999.)
Within that consensus, we can come to policies on which there is also a
consensus, because we are starting that discussion in the same place,
in an atmosphere of good will.
Consensus, as a governing process, starts with areas of agreement and
works outward. Conflict, the governing process under which we have
lived for 40 years, starts with areas of disagreement and works inward.
The only reason people are not demanding consensus instead of conflict
is because we are told that government by consensus is impossible, that
only government by conflict is possible.
The reason for this is that conflict makes good TV. Consensus makes for
bad TV. Since our media is on TV, and knows of no other way for
government to work other than conflict, you’re not going to even see
consensus mentioned.
Yet I think there is a growing consensus that conflict no longer works,
that consensus is necessary. This proposition ranks below the list
above in terms of how many people agree with it. But I think a majority
at least yearn for it, and that majority is growing.
