Just over a week ago, TVO ran my interview with Steve Paikin, on The Great Divide.
It is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1V9E7wNoaY
Steve is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, with whom I have interviewed many times over the past 25 years. When he called me for what I assumed would be a one-on-one interview on The War Against the Family, in 1993, I got a surprise. I walked into his studio, and there were about twenty people lined up in chairs just waiting to take shots at me. That was a bit of a surprise, to say the least. But I enjoyed it, nonetheless. They were all leftists from various political groups. The only “conservatives” he had there were two in number. A Christian evangelist, and a very old lady from the local seniors home!
Steve often seems to avoid the underlying ideological forces being examined in serious writing; or, perhaps he just isn’t interested in them. In this interview, I found it a little frustrating that he didn’t really accept the challenge of the book, which was to leave ordinary surface political views aside, and drill down to the foundational ideological differences between liberals and conservatives in the moral and politcal life of the western democracies. Too often, like most media folks, I guess, he looks for emotional shock value, and if he can’t find it in the material at hand, he will manfacture it. Like: “Why have you always been on the losing side?”, when he knew very well the entire book strives to contrast the two sides as fully a possible.
Nevertheless, despite his liberal blinkers, he is a gentleman. I just wish there was a media format for really digging into these kinds of topics, in depth, instead of having to speak defensively throughout.
But I guess that’s what books are for!
