Does "Evil" exist? Debatable. But for sure, "Evil Behaviour" exists. And what could be more Evil than manipulating people's fears?
There is a lot of that going around now - and regretfully the mainstream media helps these people have power to build a platform based on these fears.
They do this in the name of a good idea 'Balance". But how do you balance truth and lies? "Truth or Lies? That is a bit strong Rob?" Well.... The proof is in the pudding. What do many people believe to be true today and how did this happen? Do they believe the truth or lies?
Here is Robert Reich's perspective:
Many Americans (and politicians who the polls) don’t want a mosque at Manhattan’s Ground Zero.
An increasing percent believe the President is a Muslim.
Most Americans approve of Arizona’s new law allowing police to stop anyone who looks Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship.
Most would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally.
Where is all this coming from?
It’s called fear. When people are deeply anxious about holding on to their homes, their jobs, and their savings, they look for someone to blame. And all too often they find it in “the other” – in people who look or act differently, who come from foreign lands, who have what seem to be strange religions, who cross our borders illegally.
Americans who feel economically insecure may even become paranoid, believing, say, that the President of the United States is secretly one of “them.”
Economic fear is the handmaiden of intolerance. It’s used by demagogues who redirect the fear and anger toward people and groups who aren’t really to blame but are easy scapegoats.
The mainstream media is being manipulated by these people in the name of "Balance". The outcome is that Ignorance is winning over Truth. I am seeing that the best of intentions are creating the worst of outcomes.
The lies and the fallacies are winning. The "Simple" is crushing the "complex". There is no room for the Complex in Mainstream Media - so the "Simple" and Wrong gets the play.
Why is this happening? Is it just the poor economy? I think it is because the world has become more complex as it has become more connected. Most people can only cope with the simple or the complicated. They have to know the answers. But with Complex situations the answers cannot be known in advance.
Are we then stuck? Stuck in a social world that is complex but in a society that cannot cope with complexity? Is our media simply a product of a simple world that has simple issues?
Many things in the world are changing very rapidly. Heuristics and rules of thumb that used to work – simplifications once true because they were in alignment with the real world – no longer provide a useful function. So people use confirmation bias and other rational fallacies to prop up something – anything – that can explain things in a way that gives them comfort.
A changing world is extremely uncomfortable. Toffler wrote about this in Future Shock, one of the great books of the 70s. This shock, like culture shock, leaves many people disconnected and stressed. So, it is natural for people to seek the comfort of just-so stories that can support their replica of the real world
What seems to be happening, though, is that the media, instead of promoting understanding and stifling ignorance, is actually facilitating it. The MSM just does not want to puncture any bubbles supporting Cargo Cult Worlds.
The MSM is actively working then to prevent us from finding solutions. It does not want to inform people of the underlying principles needed to solve many of our problems.
Thus, a lot of the people know that TARP happened after Obama took office. That Social Security cards tell you which bank owns you.That humans were created in their present form 10,000 years ago. That germs do not cause disease. That Cordoba is a purely a symbol of Islamic conquest. That Einstein’s theories of relativity are disproved by Jesus’ action-at-a-distance. That a bike share program is going to lead to increased abortions. That vaccines do more harm than good. That humans are apparently alive and at work on Mars. That climate scientists are wrong about the warming of the world. That Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the world. These are just from the last 2 weeks.
There actually are people of all political persuasions that want to promote understanding, that value ideas over ideology, that are willing to admit that the world is often more complex than we would like.
But these people seem to have smaller and smaller soapboxes in the public arena. And the MSM does everything it can to make them disappear.
If we hope to overcome our problems we have to work for greater understanding and work to overturn Cargo Cult Worlds. Otherwise, we will see a continuing disconnect from reality with an increasing inability to understand the principles underlying our real world problems
Is the media Evil? No I think they are prisoners of a dangerous idea - that all ideas are worthy and that all points of view demand support.
So what about those that exploit our fears? Are they evil? What motivates them? What is the outcome of their work?
I leave you with the story of their ancestor, Father Coughlin. It was he who worked so hard to incite anti semitism in America in the 1930's that meant that America closed its doors before the holocaust. It was he that used the then new media power of radio to capture a large audience of "believers".
How would we apply the ideals of "Balance" to him? What was the price of him not being called out? Was this America's finest hour? I think most can agree that what he did was evil. So how will history judge us?
So what to do? Our media is not designed to cope with complexity. Nothing makes a complex situation worse than by trying to cope with it using the rules for simple.
So the real future, as I see it, for media is not the use of Facebook etc Is not going online etc But is finding out how best to offer up a platform for engaging in complexity. In creating a space where the process that can offer solutions to complex issues, discovery, can take place.
The Cynefin framework is a great place to start
The Cynefin framework has five domains. The first four domains are:
- Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense - Categorise - Respond and we can apply best practice.
- Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense - Analyze - Respond and we can apply goodpractice.
- Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe - Sense - Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
- Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act - Sense - Respond and we can discover novel practice.
The fifth domain is Disorder, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision.
More later.