When I was a kid, my parents had as much news on as was available: local in the early and late evenings, CNN in between. If we were together on weekdays (Take your kid to work, i.e.), I’d get treated to 3 hrs of Rush Limbaugh on the EIB network, followed by whatever local talk radio red-teamer came on afterward for afternoon drive time. At the time, it all made sense to me. I was a very informed child and I had opinions on everything from the Exxon-Valdez oil spill to Anita Hill and her relationship with then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. I was exposed to a pretty broad mixture of both balanced and biased views and I could understand what the grownups were chatting about which was like a glimpse into a secret society. I felt pretty fancy. I also thought a straw man was another name for a scarecrow.
I used to be super political. Although I was a pretty solid centrist if you broke me down by issue, I firmly identified with the red team. All of my friends were on the blue team so we all got into it fairly often. It’s worth noting that I was peaking red-team around 2003-2008 as can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Approximate history of my red-team affiliation
During these years, I was so angry. About what you ask? I can barely remember now, but they were some white hot talking points at the time, I tell you what. I wasn’t just watching Fox, either. My roommate at the time (strong with the Blue team) was always watching MSNBC so we were both getting the worst arguments from both sides. As I have gotten older, I find the news harder to tolerate, but with the practical incapability of political news and opinion in adult life, and the repetition of the messages that are distributed both by news and social media, it is difficult to prevent partisan talking points from becoming merely a script to recite when discussing issues with friends, neighbors and colleagues. I have been in situations where two die-hard Fox News viewers who had never previously met ended up finishing each other’s sentences regarding Trump dissenters. Is this because they were soul mates or because they had the same few lines of argument ground into their ears for several weeks? Awareness of this tendency in myself instigated my descent from blood red to swing voter. I noticed, with increasing alarm, that my friends and I weren’t really debating. At least on my end, I was proceeding as if I was attempting to construct an axiomatic proof using only Sean Hannity quotations.
Figure 2. I’m ANGRY!
I don’t want my kids growing up watching adults behave at developmental levels not much higher than they are. In the media, partisan politics has become (was always?) entrenched in the narrative that the other side comprises dangerous maniacs who wants nothing more than to attack “us” and destroy “our” way of life. That is not how I want my girls to grow up viewing people who disagree with them. Not that petty threats and misleading arguments are new tactics in punditry. In 1969, William F. Buckley Jr. invited Noam Chomsky to appear on Firing Line to discuss his opinion of the Vietnam War.
While neither party was particularly fond of the other afterwards, they managed to have a civil, if pugnacious, conversation about ideas. It is indeed pugnacious, as the following exchange from 9:10 to 9:21 in the linked video, shows:
Buckley: I rejoice in your disposition to argue the Vietnam question especially when I recognize what an act of self-control this must involve
Chomsky: It does, it really does, I mean I think it’s the kind of issue where sometimes I lose my temper. Maybe not tonight. *Chuckles*
Buckley: *Chuckles* Maybe Not Tonight. Because if you did I’d smash you in the goddamn face. *winks* *smiles*
Chomsky: *Smiles* *Laughs*
Audience: Chuckles.
Not to pick on Buckley, but here’s another fun one this time with Gore Vidal debating security at the 1968 democratic convention.
Vidal: As far as I’m concerned the only crypto-nazi I can think of is yourself!
Buckley: Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto-nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.
Oof; different times, I guess. But, at least they were discussing original ideas. Buckley invited Chomsky on Firing Line specifically because they disagreed. Chomsky agreed to the discussion despite clearly having no respect for Buckley. Even if Buckley brought Chomsky on strictly with the intention to “win” the debate, Chomsky’s ideas were still presented to the audience.
Neil Postman would probably say that the problem is TV and its effect on discourse and information distribution through the media compounded over the last 6 decades or so. Maybe so. These days, I go straight to the AP newswire or Reuters for my info (both have great, free mobile apps). While on the one hand, I think Postman would appreciate that many people are cutting the cord and getting their news from non-TV sources, I suspect he would be appalled at the schizophrenic nature of social media and internet news. Sadly, I guess we’ll never know. I’ll probably spend more time talking about ol’ Neil in a later post.
So how are we going to have informed kids if we don’t watch the news around them, you ask? We’re still working that out and I will probably revisit this problem in a later post as well.
To sum up this long, but too short, post, modern media discourse is probably best summed up by a quote from one of my old roommates:
“I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to die in a fire of suspicious origin.”
Scientific Dadding 