A Fair and Balanced Look at Absolutely Nothing
Tell me if this has ever happened to you:
You come to a crosswalk at a major intersection where a bunch of people are standing there, staring at the "Don't Walk" orange hand across the street. There's a similar group of people across the street, waiting for the light to change so they can cross to where you are. All of these people seem to be in a daze. You approach the curb and look both ways. Yes, the hand is correct: if you were to cross the street now, you'd be entering a line of traffic that has a green light.
But, there are no cars coming in either direction. You look left, then right, and there aren't any cars in sight. There aren't even any places where cars can turn out of parking lots and enter the line of traffic. Even if you decide to jaywalk now, you'll be across the street by the time any cars that emerge in the distance reach you. And by that time, the light will have probably changed anyway.
So you go for it, carefully stepping out into the street to cross to the other side, just like the chicken in that ancient joke we all laughed at so hard when we were younger.
And a strange thing happens when you do this: suddenly, everyone else starts crossing too. A couple of people might trickle directly after you, and then shortly thereafter the majority of the rest of them swarm right after you. Even the people across the street start crossing towards you, and pretty soon you've got two full street corners of about two or three dozen people all jaywalking across the street with you. Sure, there are a few timid souls that stay back on the curb, waiting for the little white man to show up on the crosswalk sign, so they can cross the street as law-abiding citizens and not commit little civil infractions like the rest of us horrible sinning jaywalkers. Whatever.
But what gives? Why was it me deciding to cross against the traffic light that suddenly got everyone up and walking? It was almost as though everyone was sleepwalking, and I came along with an air horn, woke them all up, and yelled, "C'mon, let's go!"
The reason thing kind of thing happens has something to do with a field in psychology called "group dynamics", and this kind of weird phenomenon in human behavior was addressed in the works of a psychologist named W.R. Bion. He was a psychotherapist who worked for several years at a mental hospital, treating patients with psychological disorders. During his time here, he noticed something funny going on: in the course of trying to treat all of the patients, it seemed that they were defeating his attempts at treating them. The patients all seemed to foil his forms of therapy.
It didn't seem like a collective effort. The patients were not getting together when Dr. Bion was in the can and conspiring to thwart his treatments as a group. But the behavior seemed consistent enough from patient to patient that he set out to figure out the answer to the question: are the patients working together or are they just all doing the same thing by coincidence?
The answer Bion arrived at was less than conclusive: it was a little of both. The social dynamics of a group of people is a funny thing. We often suppress our desires out of a need for conformity. Nobody was crossing the street because everyone wanted to be Joe Model Citizen, just like everyone else on that curb, in accordance with the behaviour exhibited by the overall group. But deep down, everyone really wanted to just jaywalk, get across the street, and get on with their day.
You see, we all want to rebel and be individualistic, but we're constrained by a drive to "fit in". So, as soon as I came along and crossed the street, in a gleeful act of defiance, everyone else decided to be defiant with me. It was as though I had given them the permission to rebel. Suddenly, they could follow through on their true desire to cross against the signal. They were suddenly free to be individualistic--just like everyone else!
For the longest time, I was really annoyed with politics, simply because they were so intangible to someone looking for some objectivity. The thing is, the political arena is so complicated that most people don't interact directly with them. Doesn't anyone really sit there and watch those hours and hours of Congress in session on CNN? Anyone? If you're out there, you need to get a job, or a hobby, or a drug habit, anything to be more productive than you're being now.
Most people don't touch politics through politicians. Instead, most of us get the scoop from commentators on television, like news anchors. This tends to be fairly dry and uninteresting. A much more engaging means is from those other political pundits in the media: Bill O'Reilly on TV, Rush Limbaugh on the radio, Al Franken and Ann Coulter via books, Michael Moore through all of the above (god help us), etc.
Now, as an intellectual, rational, thinking person, I'm pretty insulted by most all of them. I can boil down the opinions that I hear spewing from the mouths of these assholes into a quick summary. To paraphrase:
Rush Limbaugh: What Obama is doin' now is fuckin' crazy because he's a Democrat.
Michael Moore: What Bush is doin' now is fuckin' crazy because he's a Republican.
Uh-huh. That's not political commentary. Those are fundamental attribution errors. When you get to the point where you're attacking another person's character instead of addressing their arguments, you've ceased entirely to engage me in what you're saying. It's ad hominem. I want you to tell me exactly why you disagree with the arguments of the other side, and I expect a fair and balanced examination of any issue to have some overlap with the other side, so I want you tell me what parts of the other side make sense to you as well. Democratics and Republicans have some overlap in their base beliefs...let's at least admit that.
First of all, and I know this is going to piss some people off: the political party that a person chooses to align themselves with is not indicative of their ethos. I resent people who make snap judgments about me and the kind of person I am because I make a comment that seems "left" or "right". You're putting a mask over my face. You're being lazy and you're lumping me into this spectrum of bullshit which, in your mind, has only two colors: left and right. No. No no no. That's so wrong on so many levels I'm not even going to go into it.
I'm not sure if there's a word for this, but I'm an "issue-based" political person. What I think or believe is based on that particular issue, my own intuition, and what little education I might have about that particular issue. I'm not really either a Republican or a Democrat, when you look at it that way. I just am. In all honesty, I think this is the way most people are. Sure, people give themselves a label, but deep down, they're really thinking people that just notice patterns in their own line of thinking, and then gravitate towards other people with that same line of thinking.
I used to wonder why we never got impartial political commentary. Why couldn't there just be somebody who discussed the issues like a human being talking to fellow human beings? It's because people aren't really interested in aligning themselves with their own opinions. It's the confusion about whether people are individualistic or social sheep all over again: they're a little of both. They have their own opinions about political matters. But in public, they call themselves "Republican" or "Democrat", and they gravitate towards the extreme issues. They're trying to differentiate themselves, just like everyone else.
It's weird. I still don't get it.
And it seems that there can only be two sides. Two, and no more. Black and white. This is why the libertarian party, the green party, the leprechauns-with-nunchucks-who-drink-Cutty-Sark party, or whoever else, will never stand a chance getting elected into office at a presidential level. I don't think people can even handle the thought of having to choose between more than two different parties. It's just too many things for the human mind to weigh fairly. It will always be Coke vs Pepsi. Windows vs Unix (aka Macs). Having two choices affords a level of comfort that we, as human beings, have grown accustomed to. It's our zone.
And this is why I've come to accept politics for what they are instead of spouting piss and vinegar about the lack of objectivity. Sure, I'm still going to keep my nose out of things...all I'm saying is that if there's one thing you can't do, it's take a stand against people just for being people, a mistake which a lot of politicians make. And c'mon...most of us are better than that.
You come to a crosswalk at a major intersection where a bunch of people are standing there, staring at the "Don't Walk" orange hand across the street. There's a similar group of people across the street, waiting for the light to change so they can cross to where you are. All of these people seem to be in a daze. You approach the curb and look both ways. Yes, the hand is correct: if you were to cross the street now, you'd be entering a line of traffic that has a green light.
But, there are no cars coming in either direction. You look left, then right, and there aren't any cars in sight. There aren't even any places where cars can turn out of parking lots and enter the line of traffic. Even if you decide to jaywalk now, you'll be across the street by the time any cars that emerge in the distance reach you. And by that time, the light will have probably changed anyway.
So you go for it, carefully stepping out into the street to cross to the other side, just like the chicken in that ancient joke we all laughed at so hard when we were younger.
And a strange thing happens when you do this: suddenly, everyone else starts crossing too. A couple of people might trickle directly after you, and then shortly thereafter the majority of the rest of them swarm right after you. Even the people across the street start crossing towards you, and pretty soon you've got two full street corners of about two or three dozen people all jaywalking across the street with you. Sure, there are a few timid souls that stay back on the curb, waiting for the little white man to show up on the crosswalk sign, so they can cross the street as law-abiding citizens and not commit little civil infractions like the rest of us horrible sinning jaywalkers. Whatever.
But what gives? Why was it me deciding to cross against the traffic light that suddenly got everyone up and walking? It was almost as though everyone was sleepwalking, and I came along with an air horn, woke them all up, and yelled, "C'mon, let's go!"
The reason thing kind of thing happens has something to do with a field in psychology called "group dynamics", and this kind of weird phenomenon in human behavior was addressed in the works of a psychologist named W.R. Bion. He was a psychotherapist who worked for several years at a mental hospital, treating patients with psychological disorders. During his time here, he noticed something funny going on: in the course of trying to treat all of the patients, it seemed that they were defeating his attempts at treating them. The patients all seemed to foil his forms of therapy.
It didn't seem like a collective effort. The patients were not getting together when Dr. Bion was in the can and conspiring to thwart his treatments as a group. But the behavior seemed consistent enough from patient to patient that he set out to figure out the answer to the question: are the patients working together or are they just all doing the same thing by coincidence?
The answer Bion arrived at was less than conclusive: it was a little of both. The social dynamics of a group of people is a funny thing. We often suppress our desires out of a need for conformity. Nobody was crossing the street because everyone wanted to be Joe Model Citizen, just like everyone else on that curb, in accordance with the behaviour exhibited by the overall group. But deep down, everyone really wanted to just jaywalk, get across the street, and get on with their day.
You see, we all want to rebel and be individualistic, but we're constrained by a drive to "fit in". So, as soon as I came along and crossed the street, in a gleeful act of defiance, everyone else decided to be defiant with me. It was as though I had given them the permission to rebel. Suddenly, they could follow through on their true desire to cross against the signal. They were suddenly free to be individualistic--just like everyone else!
For the longest time, I was really annoyed with politics, simply because they were so intangible to someone looking for some objectivity. The thing is, the political arena is so complicated that most people don't interact directly with them. Doesn't anyone really sit there and watch those hours and hours of Congress in session on CNN? Anyone? If you're out there, you need to get a job, or a hobby, or a drug habit, anything to be more productive than you're being now.
Most people don't touch politics through politicians. Instead, most of us get the scoop from commentators on television, like news anchors. This tends to be fairly dry and uninteresting. A much more engaging means is from those other political pundits in the media: Bill O'Reilly on TV, Rush Limbaugh on the radio, Al Franken and Ann Coulter via books, Michael Moore through all of the above (god help us), etc.
Now, as an intellectual, rational, thinking person, I'm pretty insulted by most all of them. I can boil down the opinions that I hear spewing from the mouths of these assholes into a quick summary. To paraphrase:
Rush Limbaugh: What Obama is doin' now is fuckin' crazy because he's a Democrat.
Michael Moore: What Bush is doin' now is fuckin' crazy because he's a Republican.
Uh-huh. That's not political commentary. Those are fundamental attribution errors. When you get to the point where you're attacking another person's character instead of addressing their arguments, you've ceased entirely to engage me in what you're saying. It's ad hominem. I want you to tell me exactly why you disagree with the arguments of the other side, and I expect a fair and balanced examination of any issue to have some overlap with the other side, so I want you tell me what parts of the other side make sense to you as well. Democratics and Republicans have some overlap in their base beliefs...let's at least admit that.
First of all, and I know this is going to piss some people off: the political party that a person chooses to align themselves with is not indicative of their ethos. I resent people who make snap judgments about me and the kind of person I am because I make a comment that seems "left" or "right". You're putting a mask over my face. You're being lazy and you're lumping me into this spectrum of bullshit which, in your mind, has only two colors: left and right. No. No no no. That's so wrong on so many levels I'm not even going to go into it.
I'm not sure if there's a word for this, but I'm an "issue-based" political person. What I think or believe is based on that particular issue, my own intuition, and what little education I might have about that particular issue. I'm not really either a Republican or a Democrat, when you look at it that way. I just am. In all honesty, I think this is the way most people are. Sure, people give themselves a label, but deep down, they're really thinking people that just notice patterns in their own line of thinking, and then gravitate towards other people with that same line of thinking.
I used to wonder why we never got impartial political commentary. Why couldn't there just be somebody who discussed the issues like a human being talking to fellow human beings? It's because people aren't really interested in aligning themselves with their own opinions. It's the confusion about whether people are individualistic or social sheep all over again: they're a little of both. They have their own opinions about political matters. But in public, they call themselves "Republican" or "Democrat", and they gravitate towards the extreme issues. They're trying to differentiate themselves, just like everyone else.
It's weird. I still don't get it.
And it seems that there can only be two sides. Two, and no more. Black and white. This is why the libertarian party, the green party, the leprechauns-with-nunchucks-who-drink-Cutty-Sark party, or whoever else, will never stand a chance getting elected into office at a presidential level. I don't think people can even handle the thought of having to choose between more than two different parties. It's just too many things for the human mind to weigh fairly. It will always be Coke vs Pepsi. Windows vs Unix (aka Macs). Having two choices affords a level of comfort that we, as human beings, have grown accustomed to. It's our zone.
And this is why I've come to accept politics for what they are instead of spouting piss and vinegar about the lack of objectivity. Sure, I'm still going to keep my nose out of things...all I'm saying is that if there's one thing you can't do, it's take a stand against people just for being people, a mistake which a lot of politicians make. And c'mon...most of us are better than that.