THEY SAY
As I go through the day and come up against instances of how ‘the cultural war’ has placed me and my Catholic kindred spirits on one side of issues and an ever appearing contingent of folks who see things almost totally differently, I always find myself wondering about how they might have arrived at their positions. I have an inkling that most of them didn’t do an in-depth study, just as I seldom have. They are intelligent, curious people and they’ve been receptive to and desirous of getting into sync with what ‘they say’ about issues. And not only what they ’say’ but also what they assume.
Students, for instance, don’t have to be in a professor’s class very long before they begin to anticipate what he/she might say about any topic. Just the same, readers of pop newspapers and magazines soon begin to read between the lines as topics are addressed, and synthesize an estimate of what ‘they’ would say about anything. They quickly see what kind of experts are turned to in order to shed light on questions, what viewpoints are presented as ‘normal’ and ‘typical,’ and what kind of thinking is looked upon as beyond the fringe.
And of course, there a lot more They’s than there are Us.
