Leftist Radio And The Need To Have Your Opinions Confirmed

Over the past several months, I've listened to Air America and the Sirius left talk radio station quite a bit. And I have to say that I haven't been particularly impressed. Al Franken is usually a pretty funny guy, but I have rarely laughed at his show, thinking the skits forced and just unfunny. Generally the political commentary is knee-jerk and underinformed. I suppose that isn't any different from right-wing talk radio.

I was listening to the Sirius station a few days ago and heard a pretty stupid rant about how the US was researching some nuclear program and how stupid that was because we already had enough nuclear weapons. Of course this was in an almost shouting voice. And I thought a couple of things at once. First I thought that while we do have enough nuclear weapons to do all the damage we ever could want to, it's more complicated than that. There are reasons that new nuclear systems are researched and developed. They may not be good reasons, but at least we should try to understand them instead of going on a knee-jerk rant. Then I thought, "why the hell am I listening to this." Finally I began to wonder why anyone listens to this kind of radio.

Why do we need our views repeated to us? What is it about this kind of radio, both on the right and on the left, that people find appealing? Is it a sense of security? Do people feel better knowing that not only do other people share their beliefs, but they share them on radio? Do these kind of programs provide a sense of community to their listeners? I suppose that the blogosphere gives me a (limited since this is a pretty under the radar blog) sense of community. But at least it's a community of thinkers that, while they generally agree with each other on most views, are also not afraid to challenge other bloggers and to try and expand the horizon of thoughts and theories on politics and other matters. Talk radio just seems to me a droning repeat of liberal or conservative mantras. I suppose it's good that Air America is on in order to maybe snag some young people or others without fully formed views, but for me, it's a waste of my time to listen to.