This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
Perhaps, but I still think there are some possible solutions. The first and foremost is the way that people consume politics. It's tailored, it's curated, it's cherry-picked, and full of sensationalist half-truths and blatantly politicized axioms; and people gobble it up because it appeals to their tribalist instincts and emotional impulse to react at certain dog-whistles. It's this fault in human nature that compels people to elect soulless self-serving cronies and fuels extremist obstruction and divisiveness within the political machine.
While we can try to censor the media and control the stem of lies people internalize and base their decisions on, that will generally only generate controversy as people will accuse the censors of promoting specific agendas no matter how accurate they are. Ultimately, there needs to be an emphasis on critical thinking and healthy skepticism taught within schools to recognize misinformation, deceitful spins, leading rhetoric, and to collect information from various sources. But most importantly, people need to embrace complexity and ambiguity. There is more than one side to a story, there are rarely ever simple answers, and if a certain scandal is dependent on more than a handful of people remaining quiet to make sense, there is another alternative.
What we have instead of critical thinking and skepticism is outright denial by calling something 'fake news' or demonizing the source, refusing to even engage in the conversation or flocking to specific news companies and social media feeds that agree with our predispositions. We let these faceless entities spoon-feed us our own opinions on a story or topic by framing it through a narrow perspective, omitting details, bringing up irrelevant details, relying on out-of-context clips and soundbites, leading through assumptions, and using the rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos, and logos to sell us the notion of clear and obvious intent.
Until nuance can be embraced by the people, we'll always be a nation divided
While we can try to censor the media and control the stem of lies people internalize and base their decisions on, that will generally only generate controversy as people will accuse the censors of promoting specific agendas no matter how accurate they are. Ultimately, there needs to be an emphasis on critical thinking and healthy skepticism taught within schools to recognize misinformation, deceitful spins, leading rhetoric, and to collect information from various sources. But most importantly, people need to embrace complexity and ambiguity. There is more than one side to a story, there are rarely ever simple answers, and if a certain scandal is dependent on more than a handful of people remaining quiet to make sense, there is another alternative.
What we have instead of critical thinking and skepticism is outright denial by calling something 'fake news' or demonizing the source, refusing to even engage in the conversation or flocking to specific news companies and social media feeds that agree with our predispositions. We let these faceless entities spoon-feed us our own opinions on a story or topic by framing it through a narrow perspective, omitting details, bringing up irrelevant details, relying on out-of-context clips and soundbites, leading through assumptions, and using the rhetorical appeals of pathos, ethos, and logos to sell us the notion of clear and obvious intent.
Until nuance can be embraced by the people, we'll always be a nation divided
Mamapolo2016 · F
@TinyViolins One side sees it through a conservative lens and one sees it through a liberal lens. Both lenses distort truth.
TinyViolins · 31-35, M
@Mamapolo2016 There's even more factions than that, which drowns out the truth even further
Mamapolo2016 · F
@TinyViolins Yes. A full list would be considered TFLTR here.