(Cross-posted from Jay's Right of Assembly)
Let's talk about the world's largest unregulated toxic emission source.
I am referring, of course, to our mass media and the tainted information that it spews. The mass media isn’t the only source of mind pollution, but its emissions represent by far the strongest and most dangerous propaganda in our culture.
Before I propose the unthinkable, though, let us briefly review the basic mechanism of propaganda...
Propaganda is:
a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.
Straight-out lies play only a minor role in this. Misstatements of fact, (e.g., "Obama's health plan will prevent you from choosing your own doctor") are relatively easy to detect and defuse. Other forms of bias better disguise their agenda (e.g., doubt-sowing questions, like "Will health care be Obama's Waterloo?").
Propaganda exploits vulnerabilities in the human cognitive process. For example,
- When we receive more information than we can consciously process, sometimes the unprocessed information "sneaks through" and matures into an assumption or idea, the source of which we cannot easily trace
- A negative statement impacts our mental and emotional state, and colors our perception of subsequently received information
- Repeated impressions impact our habitual thought processes, regardless of the substance of the impression
- Innocent-sounding questions conceal implicit assumptions that can become frames for subsequent analysis
The mass media routinely use propaganda techniques. In the last election, for example, we all witnessed the media repeatedly pin negative words to Obama (doubt, challenge, untested) and positive words to McCain (maverick, sincere, and hero).
More recently, the Washington Post observed:
Cable news programs repeatedly declare[d] the president's health care program is "teetering" or "embattled," despite a week in which Obama's proposals were endorsed by the doctor and nurses associations and committees in both legislative chambers passed major bills.
There is no doubt that these negative repetitions affect people's perceptions of the candidates and issues, just as surely as frequent travelers associate blue with Hilton and yellow with Hertz. The color associations seem harmless if you don't care much about travel service providers -- just as the emotive associations seem harmless to people who don't care much about politics.
But there is nothing harmless about conditioning people’s mental associations.
It takes extraordinary mental effort to actively identify and resist all of the deceptions flowing from any particular spigot of the mass media. You can't keep your guard up at all times, and especially not against all things. So even if you are defending yourself against the mischaracterizations of Democrats or their prospects, what's probably getting past your defenses are toxic ideologies like:
- Sexism
- Racism
- Individualism
- Capitalism
- Market Theory
These concepts get woven into our assumptions without much analysis. I hear Progressives all the time say, "I'm not against Capitalism, but..."
You’re not against Capitalism? You should be. It has proven itself an enormously destructive economic system that imposes structural constraints that block most of the advances that Progressives hold dear. One of the great false assumptions taught by the mass media is that Capitalism is a fountain of good things, like freedom and democracy, and merely requires tending to ward off excesses. The facts are demonstrably otherwise (see, e.g., Democracy and Capitalism or Enemy of Nature).
Here is another example of a false assumption that pervades the mass media: the idea that a particular private development project should be lauded for creating a certain number of jobs. Jobs may indeed be created, but public expenditures create just as many jobs. The important questions are:
- What kind of jobs?
- What is the social value that remains after the project is completed and the jobs go away? and
- Who gets to decide which projects get funded?
Left to their own devices, capitalists are disproportionately likely to fund yachts, private mansions, and elite institutions like golf courses and country clubs. Counting the number of jobs created is one of the very few ways to make such enterprises seem socially useful.
The focus on the number of jobs, rather than the residual value of the project, is a sleight-of-hand that removes from consideration the most important impacts of the development, and it conceals crucial evidence that would help people realize that public spending typically helps the public more than private spending helps the public.
So why is there not more resistance to the mass media? Why do we let it into our bedrooms as if it were a house pet rather than a dangerous animal?
More than other groups, Progressives seem to understand that you-are-what-you-eat, and they are particularly careful to put in their bodies foods that are natural, and less likely to contain invisible poisons.
In an equally profound sense, you are what you think. And yet many Progressives are reckless about what they put in their minds. My friends think they can defend themselves from lies by being responsible consumers of information.
But in truth, our minds are as ill-equipped do drink from poisonous media as our bodies are to drink from a polluted river. In theory, we might be able to extract the fresh water and repel the toxins, but in fact neither our digestive tract nor our mental processes are capable of effectively processing either modern water pollution or information pollution.
Instead, most framing will be absorbed without notice. Once absorbed, the toxic ideas are there to stay. Everyone has at one time or another been confronted with a horrible image that they "can’t get out of their heads." George Lakoff demonstrates that you can’t unthink a thought. And the presence of that not-unthinkable-thought colors all your other thoughts.
And so what a strange contradiction it is for progressives, academics, and other thoughtful people to laud themselves for a day’s hard working thinking through complex policy positions, then, each night gather in the soft glow of the television to marinate in the intentional lies and distortions of the mass media, batting away a few misperceptions and absorbing the rest.
People who have taken up diet and exercise consistently report that they feel healthy, happy, and energized. But you rarely meet people who have given up television. There are perhaps a million in the United States -- a fraction of a percent of the population. These people report that they think more clearly, have more free time, and that, unlike other kinds of diets, there is no temptation to return to television watching.
The other 99% of the population are mostly TV addicts who don’t acknowledge the addiction. Ask around: nearly all of them "don’t watch much" TV. They "only watch a few shows."
But you know they’re hooked because they can’t give up those few shows. They often get emotional, rather than rational, in their defense of whatever niche-targeted programming has been parasitizing their brains, and they can lash out angrily at people who recommend TV abstinence.
So here is a challenge: If you are not addicted to your "few shows," can you give up television for a week? If you do, you’ll find you think more clearly, and you have more time for things that matter.
Can you give it up for a month? You’ll start to develop new habits to fill the liberated time, like reading more, and corresponding with people. More walks, gardening, or maybe organizing your things. Start a business.
And you won’t just be helping yourself. Fox News, a particularly aggressive propaganda operation, gains its power from the size of its audience, and it loses power when its audience shrinks. The same is true of the mass media in general. If you take away your share of its power, then everyone is better off.
But if you can’t make the commitment now, then at least do these two things:
First, count how many hours you are watching TV, and include the time when the TV is on in the background, distracting your conversations and beckoning to you.
Second, consider whether that time spent is really your highest priority, or whether there might be even better ways to "relax and unwind." Also, spend a few minutes with the scientific studies that prove television’s negative impacts. (Start with The Plug-in Drug or Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, and there is plenty more at Kill Your Television.com).
Of course, SOMEONE has to watch television to to see what mischief lurks there, and we would be much worse off without Media Matters documenting the horrible details. However, TV watching is properly treated as a semi-hazardous vocation to be approached with investigative rigor and safety goggles, not as a casual relaxation. There need to be a few brave souls to monitor the mischief, but does it have to be you? Even if you think you are safely handling the toxic effects, do you need to? Do you want to? And why can’t you think of anything better to do?
UPDATE: The current top story on Daily Kos by BarbInMD illustrates this very point. "They're not even pretending anymore. Today's journalism means to decide on an agenda and push it, the facts be damned." Anything more than hand-wringing?