How Liberals Manifest Their Own Imprisonment

Progressives (aka liberals) dominate the popular culture where they mostly reinforce their own perception of themselves as enlightened, all-knowing and several levels above just about everybody else. They also incestuously disparage any views not aligned with their own -- mostly dismissing them as crude and ignorant.

This characteristic of the modern, self-appointed liberal intelligentsia has been known for some time. But, in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Barton Swain dissected it perfectly and explained how saturating it is and how it has kept progressives detached and misguided. For them, it may also very well be the road to ruin. Here (with an underlined area added for emphasis) are some excerpts from the piece (entitled Why The Smart Party Never Learns) which is still generated a good deal of buzz:

If you’re on the right, you simply can’t isolate yourself from the habits and attitudes of left-liberal progressivism. They are everywhere. The most determined imbiber of right-wing opinion still watches television and movies and reads the mainstream press. The left-liberal outlook is expressed everywhere in these media, and generally it isn’t expressed as viewpoint but as established fact. . . . 

There is no bubble, no silo, for such a person.

The urban-dwelling knowledge-class progressive experiences few such dissonant moments. So pervasive are the opinions of left-liberal progressivism throughout American culture that the adherent of that worldview may roam freely in it with minimal disquiet. . . . 

The left-liberal outlook has triumphed across American culture—in corporate boardrooms, in government agencies, in sports and entertainment institutions, in K-12 education bureaucracies, in universities and in media organizations. But that is precisely what has robbed progressives, especially those in the political class and in the media, of any ability to criticize themselves or doubt their own righteousness. They don’t engage with serious arguments advanced by the other side. They live in a world in which it is possible to pass through a month without encountering much in the way of serious conservative opinion. When they do encounter a conservative view, it is precategorized as “fringe” or “extreme” by the calm, omniscient NPR voice that relates its content.