A Disney Dialogue

This isn’t about Howard Rosenberg’s position vis-a-vis Southern Baptists versus the Walt Disney Co. (“Why Has What You Watch Become Their Business?,” June 20). This is about the acerbic words from his pen when discussing Christians, of whom I’m one. Thus, in his eyes, we’re “vision impaired . . . cultural bullies . . . zealots [a buzzword] . . . Disney bashers . . . seeking to impose their values and tastes on the multitudes, no matter how loopy their theories . . . Christendom’s grinning bag of bilge, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. . . .”

Why does Rosenberg, for that matter, resort to the weakest tactic of rejoinder and refutation, viz., argumentum ad hominem. It only dilutes the strength of his arguments on the main issue. Why can’t he instead take off from a surface where neither side holds a monopoly on the truth nor the exclusive high ground on an issue? Why poison the atmosphere with one’s own bile?

Might we all not reason together without recourse to derogatory personal insults that only serve to sunder our hearts and minds farther apart? It may not sell newspapers as well but it just might restore civil dialogue to its once pristine podium.

MANUEL M. ROXAS

Glendale