A WORLD OF CACOPHONY

The difference between a symphony and a cacophony...? The first is a coordinated blend of individual notes which come together into harmonic themes. The second is a disconnected clash of individual sounds which never come together into anything remotely harmonic...!

Translate this from the concert hall to our public forums, and the point is clear. There's little these days in these forum that ever harmonizes. Teams and athletes, parties and politicians, bankers and CEOs, clergy and celebrities, visions and missions -- in these forums there's mostly a relentless drumbeat of angry clashing sounds from the crowds with nary a note of harmony anywhere.

Not only do we spend a lot of time disagreeing, we do it so disagreeably.

This is just a theory you understand, but is it possible the last time a great mass of us ever cheered for the very same thing was that last big college football game? Or maybe that day we lifted a toast to our marriage, our first baby, our first home, our first anything? Or very possibly after Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the Twin Towers in 2001? However, now as of the early 21st C, it would seem the only thing we all still agree on is our right to disagree.

No need to define this as what defines a free society. That's a given. What's not a given is that this right must be frittered away in dead-end furies at dinner tables, sport bars, country clubs, public meetings, City Hall, Congress, oh and on 24/7 Cable and Internet. I expect even Thomas Jefferson to rise from his grave some day to yell out in his best 18th C harmony: "ENOUGH!"

One has to suspect the Fathers of our Constitution would agree there is a powerful difference between liberty and license. License is an excuse to go wherever I can. Liberty is the opportunity to run go wherever I should. Olympians do it, teams do it, survivors do it, congregations do it, lovers do it. How about the rest of us...?

As both fan and voter, I honestly wonder if Voltaire would still say: "I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."? Come to think of it, he probably would. After all, he's never been to a Cub/Sox game or spent an entire term in our Congress....