Though Zogby attempts to be nonpartisan, the underlying message of his book is that authenticity is entering a golden age, cupidity is kaput and cynicism will soon be a thing of the past. That and the fact that he seems to have a soft spot in his heart for Al Gore and Anna Quindlen suggest that he hates Republicans. A dominant theme of his book is that mean old white men who drive big cars are a spent force. I only wish this were so; for quite some time I’ve been thinking of cleaning out my desk and heading for the exits now that society no longer needs me. But as my wise old mentor, the Barron’s editor and columnist Alan Abelson, used to remind me, the con man’s favorite pitch line is: “This time it’s different.” Before World War I, there was a common European belief that progress was inevitable. The First Battle of the Somme ended that. Zogby, a Pollyanna if there ever was one, seems to have infinite faith in mankind’s ability to perfect itself. We’ll see.
Part of the problem in the pop clairvoyance racket is that not all oracles are equally Delphic. Zogby, who loves to coin cloying terms like “Secular Spiritualists” and “the Dreamless Dead,” describes pollsters as “priests and philosophers . . . peering through the veil of time.” He adds, “Unlike priests and philosophers, though, . . . we at least have the data to back us up.”
Priests and philosophers may disagree. Did the pollsters who predicted a Kerry-Edwards victory in 2004 have the data to back themselves up? Were the pollsters who said, “Watch out for that Fred Thompson surge!” and “Keep your eyes peeled for that Wesley Clark tsunami!” supported by any solid numbers? Did the pollsters who had Hillary Clinton facing off against Rudy Giuliani in November have much success peering through the veil of time? Sorry, Mr. Zogby, but when the public is in the market for prognostications, a lot of us are sticking with Aristotle, Descartes, Fulton J. Sheen, St. Jude and Nostradamus. Prophecy-wise, they’ve got a better track record.
Queenan writes: “Before World War I, there was a common European belief that progress was inevitable. The First Battle of the Somme ended that.”
Only in the short term is progress not inevitable; history suggests strongly that the long term is a different story. Few would argue that the world hasn’t recovered the ground lost during WWI and -II, and then some; not many would be willing to trade places permanently with a random person who lived in June 1914. (This is Gregg Easterbrook’s thought experiment from The Progress Paradox.)