Not For People Who Can't Read Good

Some of you may have already seen this Chris Hedges editorial/polemic/essay, since it was posted on AlterNet two days ago and has already inspired more than 300 comments. It's titled "Forget Red vs. Blue - It's the Educated vs. People Easily Fooled by Propaganda." In one sense, this could come off as the most despicable bit of intellectual snobbery since GING (or my referring to it as such). In another sense, it's entirely accurate (hint: the latter is correct). I would worry about the sort of vicious comments that should pile up below for propping such a piece, but anyone who disagrees with this is most likely incapable of getting through the whole thing. Here's an excerpt:

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.