So we are skeptical. But often our skepticism is combined with a kind of certainty or conviction. We don't challenge or reject everything all the time. To keep going, we have to keep some aspects of our lives stable and secure. We need base points from which to navigate. Skepticism toward the mainstream. news, then, is combined with an increased division between who watches what and who trusts whom. Some sources can be trusted. Republicans in the United States are m.ore likely to watch Fox News and report that they trust what they hear on Fox. Vice President Dick Cheney has said he only watches Fox. The idea of the decline of symbolic eficiency clicks on this fragmentation, on the inability of elements that flourish in one discursive habitat to take root and thrive in another.
As <sup>Z</sup>izek points out, Donald Davidson designates the background assumption that everything another says is not completely wrong the "principle of charity:' It's a presumption of underlying agreement on which disagreement rests. Davidson argues that "charity is not an option . . . charity is forced on us; whether we like it or not, if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters:'35 The decline of symbolic eficiency points to the withering away of this principle of charityless and less are people today forced to presume charity. There are strong material-technological explanations for this withering away. Not only are communication technologies charitable in our stead, making connections with other machines, but the interconnecting of ever more people lets us find enough of those who share our convictions that we don't have to believe. In a previous age, we may have been isolated in our views, village idiots roaming the streets, madwomen in the attics, or psychotic judges driven to document our illness and our discoveries. Now we're part of a discourse, community, or movement.
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