This gem is from the "Writers on Writing" column in the arts section of today's New York Times: "Used to choosing my friends for their like minds and agreeable opinions, I found it hard to be thrust into relationships with supporters of the death penalty or the N.R.A., of prayer in schools or unbridled property rights. But in time I learned that it wasn't necessary to always speak to someone about the things on which we disagreed. We could find common ground in an interest in heirloom potato varieties or the vicissitudes of puppy training. Within a year or two I was surprised that several of the folk I'd disliked on first meeting had somehow turned into valued friends."
How better to sum up the condescending mindset of the New York Times? There's the implicit assumption that the Times readers are united in their opposition to the death penalty and that they don't include any members of the N.R.A. There's the disdain for "unbridled property rights" -- with the standard refusal to follow this disdain to its logical conclusion. Would the writer also propose to surrender her intellectual property rights and give up the rights to her book royalties? There's self-congratulatory open-mindedness that isn't really open-minded at all: the writer pats herself on the back for becoming friends with those she differs with politically, but the "friendship" seems not to extend to engaging them seriously about their political opinions. There's a fancy word --"vicissitudes" -- thrown in, perhaps to reassure the writer that while she may be friendly with these country bumpkins, she still has a city vocabulary. And there's even a split infinitive -- "to always speak" -- thrown in, both to leave doubt about the meaning and to infuriate further any intelligent readers with the patience to wade through this stuff.