More and more we have become a society with an obscene gap between rich and poor. We are also a society more so-cially and politically divided than ever before. And everything in our technical infrastructure and popular culture encour-ages and exacerbates these trends. And when an approach is developed to teach critical thinking in our schools, so nec-essary to the parsing and understanding of complex issues, the wing nuts on the right believe it is a communist plot.
The Great Divide
More and more we have become a society with an obscene gap between rich and poor. We are also a society more so-cially and politically divided than ever before. And everything in our technical infrastructure and popular culture encour-ages and exacerbates these trends. And when an approach is developed to teach critical thinking in our schools, so nec-essary to the parsing and understanding of complex issues, the wing nuts on the right believe it is a communist plot.
A friend asked recently – “Why is it that we are we so polar-ized?” I realized that the Gabrielle Giffords shooting explains it all. If you think this a complete nonsequitur – hang in there with me.
David Brooks addressed this question and ascribed it to a more educated electorate then at any time in the past. I be-lieve that his reasoning was, at best, specious. (Big deal he is the one with the column in the New York Times.)
I would love to be able to provide a simple answer, that sil-ver bullet that would explain away the conundrum. But as with many issues concerning a society, the answer is com-plex and not reducible to a simple explanation.
Today, polarization is at the core of many of the problems we face as a society. It limits, even obviates, discourse and compromise, necessary elements of an enlightened and properly functioning society. This inevitably leads to an US versus THEM mentality – or polarization.
There are a wide variety of reasons that contribute to this problem: religious beliefs, frustration with the pace or direc-tion of change, political philosophy and fear and loathing of…well anything, to name just a few. And the more I think about it, the more I see almost all of them stemming from changes in our social mores. Customs of behavior that is ac-cepted as not only right but obligatory. But what are the drivers?
First is the role that our all-pervasive media and entertain-ment industry plays. For example, we have become desensi-tized to the very act of killing by the insidious inculcation of violence into the very fabric of our pop culture: movies and video games.
Is this violence simply satisfaction of a blood lust inherent in us all, or are they merely compounding this propensity by going with what sells? No wonder our mass media, enter-tainment industry and public figures pander to emotions ra-ther than reason. Over the top garners attention, headlines and profits.
We have also become intolerant of those who challenge our worldviews. Rather than treat such views as genuine and heartfelt we belittle and denigrate the speaker in ad homi-num attacks. However, there are many we do not agree with that have come to their views intelligently and with a strong moral and ethical basis.
It would be bad enough if only the media and entertainment industries are guilty of perpetrating these egregious images and characterizations. But we have elected officials who skirt the lines of unconscionable speech. Pilar Rahola, a Spanish politician, journalist and activist said, “They don’t inform, they propagandize”.
And the Internet and talk radio cannot escape blame. Angry people spewing unsubstantiated blather as if it were gospel.
There are some basic changes that have realigned our social mores and thus bear on this question.
First is a loss of common civility. I have heard children talk-ing back to their parents in such a rude and crude manner that I was embarrassed. If civility is lost to children, it is na-ïve to think they will regain it when they reach adulthood.
An inability to admit to being wrong and refusal to accept responsibility. I have seen these tendencies lead to lying and/or changing reality, or to the simple ignoring or refusal to accept facts. And here I differentiate between outright ly-ing and the changing of reality. Those who change reality repeat the falsehood so often they come to believe it to be true.
There is no dearth of truly polarizing issues beleaguering so-ciety today. Reproductive rights, marriage equality, immi-gration and privacy versus public safety are viewed as irre-solvable. And it is not as if we have not had such issues in our past - one even led to our civil war. But the discussions today become magnified by our technically aided ability to communicate with each other, in effect, louder than in the past.
We also tend to politicize non-political issues. To cite just two; the belief by some that childhood vaccines lead to au-tism and the denial that human involvement is the proxi-mate cause of global climate change.
This is better understood when one looks at the surveys that indicate that some 70% of Americans get their news from the nightly network broadcasts. Everything explained in three-minute sound bites without analysis, discussion or counter argument.
We have become a society more deeply polarized than ever before, with our technical infrastructure and popular culture aiding and abetting. Thus the mentally unstable and intellec-tually bankrupt resort to violence to resolve what they can-not articulate, much less change – thus the tragedy of Gab-by Gifford.
“One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journal-ists and turned them loose to start so many blogs…“They should have executed them. Then they wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly let them out alive.”
Alan T. Mutter, media consultant
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they don’t inform, they propagandize
Pilar Rahola, a Spanish politician, journalist and activist
Once I heard Rush Limbaugh accuse a caller of treason for questioning the efficacy of the war in Iraq. He actually called him a traitor, and not once but five or six times, screaming over the radio.
And I have not even touched on what science is now finding about the psychological, biological, and even genetic differ-ences between those who opt for the political left and those who tilt toward the right. An interlocking and supporting body of evidence can be found in moral psychology, genet-ics, cognitive neuroscience, and physiology and cognition. Essentially we are virtually predisposed as to our views, and only change and evolve our beliefs with the liberal applica-tion of intellect (no pun intended).