“You agree with me, right?” It’s hard work, brainwashing a stranger.
I know I risk talking about the lunch series at my workplace too much (but since no one really reads this, can a person really talk to themselves too much?), but today’s lunch guest was Arianna Huffington. Many topics were covered, but most of the lunch centered on the idea of a civic-minded society as discussed in her latest book. Hallmarks of such a society would, presumably, include things like low inequality, excellent and affordable health care for all, more people working for the greater good, people helping other people, and other just really nice things that I think everyone would want in the society they live in.
Skipping the details of the discussion, at various points she hit on the topics of the HuffPo’s web stats, the necessity of pushing good ideas across media to change minds, and the HuffPo emulating print media bringing in an audience through the low-brow to redirect them to the high brow. The word socialism may also have been said by someone (not her).
As so often happens, whatever I would want to ask/say came to me right at the end of the discussion. I’d like to talk about some of this with someone sometime in a navel-gazey way.
1) Let’s first assume a controversial political stereotype to be true: the Senate is weak in part because low-population states (take a Wyoming or West Virginia, e.g.) exert outsized, self-interested influence on national and at times global issues. Low population states typically mean more rural areas. Rural areas have much lower access to high-speed internet than urban areas that are typically left-leaning. HuffPo is online only. How can one working online only ever reach those people in those areas? Particularly in light of:
2) The average American watches 35h34m of television per week. That’s almost a full-time job. It’s been argued that in the 21st century, literacy is more about knowledge processing rather than acquisition, and television, being a passive medium, may not be the ideal place in which to change minds and hearts. Also, to jump onto the discussion pile about what passes for news on TV “these days,” people watch TV to affirm, not inform, their opinions. With that in mind,
3) The thinking goes that with ‘the poor getting poorer,’ people are more inclined to hold onto their own. The value of living in a society that asks for sacrifice or social service might not be a priority for someone living hand-to-mouth. Furthermore, this is a country where for whatever reason ‘holding onto one’s own’ (i.e. low taxes) is tied inextricably to those social identity issues (e.g. religion, the 2nd amendment) that are wired into those deeply fundamental parts of people’s brains that yearn to be part of a self-identifying group (i.e. tribalism). So,
4) It all leads to the stupidly simple eternal question of “how do you ever change anyone’s beliefs ever?” I know that many product ads target the young to build brand loyalty for life. And yet thinking hard about politics is generally a “post-quarter-life crisis” arena of life; maybe your beliefs only become concrete when you have kids, advance enough in your career to pay high taxes yourself, or go through a long stretch of unemployment with no health insurance. Often, one’s beliefs on those issues are never truly solidified: there are people who are proud of having voted for every winning president in their lives, which sort of says they don’t have a core set of issues they’ve centered their voting behavior around over the years. So to inculcate the principles associated with a civil society: that sounds much more like a cultural or even moral battle than an intellectual one, right?
So is this how ‘people who care too much’ get jaded? From the above questions, it seems that no matter what side you’re on, you’re never going to live in your own ideal society: the fight is just too big. What can sustain you over the years? Maybe you work for your kids, or your grandkids, or just to make the country a better place. I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that.
