“Newspeak”

by with 2 Comments CultureFeaturedPolitics

How do we create dialogue on different planes of reality?

I recently had a conversation with someone who stands on the far opposite end of the political spectrum from me. When I presented a verifiable fact, the type of fact that one could argue the reason for the content of the fact, but not the occurrence of the fact itself, I was told that it did not happen. “Fake news,” I was informed. I didn’t quite know what to say, but responded with a simple, “no, it’s not.” From there we argued whether or not the fact actually happened, and this person’s veracity made me question my truth. So, I re-verified what I knew to be fact. I felt vindicated, but I also felt cheated – that I had allowed what could have been a productive conversation between two people with different beliefs to turn into an argument over the very validity of a fact. Has political discourse become nothing more than petty arguments over what a fact is?

George Orwell, in his increasingly prescient novel 1984, said, “not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

We currently have a president who has told more than 10,000 non-truths in 2.5 years. But, he is an expert at denying what we can see with our own eyes. By repeating the lie over and over, we begin to question what the truth is and, over time, our truths become different realities. When I speak about something I know is truth, there are others that believe the opposite is true. One of us believes 2+2=5, and as a result, the other loses the freedom that comes from saying 2+2=4. And while one can say they have verifiable evidence that 2+2=4 (the mathematics community, etc.), the believer that 2+2=5 has a traditionally reliable source telling them they are correct, the President of the United States. The very existence of eternal reality is being questioned. Arguing if what we know beyond a reasonable doubt as fact is true destroys all meaningful dialogue on the important topics we need to discuss as a nation.

So, how do we make sense of this and return to an age when we could discuss things productively? I believe that dialogue is important, and our lack of conversations of substance has badly harmed our country.

I think there are several things we can do to begin curing this and healing.

First, we absolutely must elect a president that holds truth to the highest standard. Someone who is honest even when it’s unpopular and hasn’t shifted their goal posts throughout their career. We will never be able to re-discover integrity, on both sides of the aisle, if we don’t demand our elected leaders possess it.

Second, we must demand that social media give us an accurate depiction of the world and political landscape so we can escape our individual bubbles. Social media is designed as an echo chamber in which we are presented with information that furthers our beliefs and shows us what we already believe, not as an actual provider of information and truth.

Third, we continue to talk, at any cost. Maybe we have to schedule these talks with others that actually want to have dialogue on important topics. Maybe we need to have a computer nearby to verify data we disagree on the validity of. Maybe we begin the conversation by finding common ground and building from there. There are very few people who believe small children should be separated from their mother, even if they don’t believe the mother and child have a right to be in this country. Are we able to get to meaningful conversation by first agreeing that children should not be kept in jails away from their family?

Fourth, we have to always remember that we have been presented with separate facts, and we do not share the same truths. The bubbles we live in are not of our own making, but they are real and we won’t pierce through them by getting frustrated or angry. So, we understand that we need the dialogue, our realities are different, but we have common ground. Then we verify facts and we demand the way we receive information is based in reality and our elected leaders are committed to the truth. Who knows, it could work.

One thing is for sure, if we do nothing, it will be a bright cold day in April as the clocks strike thirteen. 

Similar Read: Critiquing the Candidates

Mainstream Media or “Fake News”?

by with One Comment CultureMediaPolitics

A few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert was up in arms over the President’s dismissal of CBS anchor John Dickerson – whom the President referred to as “Fake News” and then dismissed entirely when Dickerson questioned the president’s source for claims that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

To a lot of people on the coasts, this seems laughable and shocking that a president could be so dismissive of mainstream media while making completely unfounded claims of his own.  Nonetheless, it resonates with millions of people throughout most of the Midwest (an area bereft of major broadcast journalists).

Donald Trump definitely has made heavy use of “alternative facts”, but the backlash the mainstream media has used to counter (perhaps in defense of their own credibility) has only served to give weight to his assertions.  A look at the CNN homepage for the past two months yields a full transcript of SNL’s best digs on the White House- despite no affiliation between CNN and SNL parent NBC.  I counted three articles a few weekends ago that discussed anecdotal information that various Republican congressmen didn’t know before sending the partial repeal of Obamacare to the Senate this week, and yet there wasn’t an article outlining the bill’s full content in even terms.  The closest two articles to an overview of the bill on CNN as I wrote this were “Pre Existing Conditions: Pregnancy, Sleep Apnea Could Make You Pay More” and “Here’s a (Partial) List of All the Pre-Existing Conditions the GOP Bill May Not Cover”.  There’s no real up front mention of savings, what’s protected, or that this is a starter version of the bill sent to the Senate.  There isn’t much of an overview at all.  I wonder how any independent person could come to any sort of conclusion at all about the healthcare bill from reading CNN, or even understand fully what it is (rather than a few anecdotal things that it isn’t).

One of the largest reasons the President’s “Fake News” message resonated so well as President Elect was the very surprise that he had won the election at all.  For many in the Midwest, talking to their neighbors and friends, it seemed clear Donald Trump was doing well in their own polls of peers.  Many in the Midwest looked around and could see clearly that he was winning in their district weeks ahead of the election despite poll numbers on major news networks showing different outcomes- particularly in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin.  The fact that the polls misrepresented the actual vote gave many people grounds to distrust many of the major news networks as making any effort to present balanced facts – or even facts at all.

That may well have been bad polling.  In any regard, it’s given the President an opportunity to confuse the American people as to where to look for the truth, and it does appear that many of the networks – perhaps through attacking the President in response to criticism aimed at the networks – have played fully into his hands.  

165 days are over, but there are 1,295 more to go.  The public probably would appreciate journalism that starts with facts and overviews.  When everyone is yelling and pointing fingers, everyone is just noise, and if that’s how the next few years go- it’ll be the media and not the White House who will lose this war of words.