It’s
impossible to look at media – print, television news, Internet news
or social media – without seeing alarming negative headlines about politics,
elected officials and world affairs.
This may not be the first time in history that people were so polarized
in their views on the various issues and people who should be elected to fix
them, but because of the Internet everything is amplified. Not to mention the ability everyone has to
edit and photo shop information to suit their opinion – which leads us to a
phrase that is currently the darling of
all sides, fake news. This is certainly not a new phenomenon just a
resurrection and intensification of an old tactic. Anyone who has read about the French Revolution
knows that the road to the guillotine was paved with libel, gossip and
denigration. The pornographic little libellés disseminated about Marie
Antoinette were the era’s fake news.
They were based on court rumors, gossip and political vendettas so we will never really know the
truth. Sound familiar?
 |
| Marie Antoinette in court portrait |
To
me there is only one real definition of fake news and it’s totally
subjective. It usually comes down to
whether the source agrees with your narrative.
Yes you can try to research the original source, but so much of it is
just repeated conjecture. I am reminded
of a quote from Nietzsche, “People don’t want to hear the truth because they
don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
 |
| Political cartoon of Marie Antoinette as harpy devouring hogs! |
The
level of name-calling and vitriol surrounding all social/political issues has
become overwhelming. As a 73-year-old who
has never been registered in a
political party – I think my designation is listed as “decline to state” – my
beliefs fall more in line with what is defined as libertarian. To quote
Wikipedia, “libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy,
emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and self-ownership.” My
idea of government’s role is far from the invasive bureaucracy that everyone
sees as broken– they just see it as broken in totally different ways.
The 2016 presidential election was a dog
and pony show consisting of a large percentage of “gloss over the flaws of the candidate
you found the least offensive, and beat up the other with any dirt
reported.” For my health and spirit I
watch almost no news, read no newspapers, and try to skim past the material
online. (I actually think we should come
up with a different term because “news” has become another word for opinion.)
People sometimes question how I keep up with things, but trust me, just with
the exposure to TV or radio in public places, checkout line headlines, Facebook
and conversations between family and friends I get the gist without the endless
speculation and repetition that passes for news. I do read books, lots of non-fiction, and I
tend to read several books in a row about a topic, country, etc. One of my recent favorite topics is North
Korea, which is a crime against humanity governed by one family that has enslaved a
whole country for as long as I've been alive.
I also watch documentaries and
often look for opposing points of view.
It
has helped my serenity to avoid having exchanges with people on Facebook, but I
have two examples of recent posts that were very heartening. As someone who was a public school teacher, and has two daughters who've been public school teachers (one who is the long
time director of a much loved public charter school where we were both involved
from it’s inception) I’ve had the most curiosity about the nominee for
Secretary of Education. When a woman I
know mostly from Facebook posted a negative article about the nominee, Betsy De
Vos, ending with, “if you think that’s not the case please share you logic,” I
broke my own rule and replied. My point
of view is based on my belief that this system has been broken for years, and
President Carter’s formation of the Department of Education in 1979 has done
nothing to improve it. The Federal
Department of Education operates a lot like skimming money in a Las Vegas
casino, with the return being another set of rules where schools have to hire
people to fill out more paper work, so I am one of those who think we could put
a lot more money toward children by getting rid of it. From different sides of
the fence we had a reasonable exchange, without agreement, but with respect and
good will.
Yesterday
I read a post of a Facebook friend I have never met but who is a writer I
admire. She is a self-declared liberal, and following my desire to try to avoid political exchanges, I usually skip her
political posts, but this one was titled “When We Hate” so I read it. It was a well-written, openhearted piece
about having compassion for someone you disagree with. I pulled myself out of the comments
section before I lost the real depth of what I had just read and got pulled
back into the rancor, but not before reading her reply to someone, “we can be
opposed to people and still say that person was kind and decent.”
I
am reminded of something my husband and I read recently in our morning prayers
that include reading from Emmet Fox’s book of daily readings. The section was on the Lord’s Prayer, which
he takes apart starting with the distinction of “Our Father” not “My Father.” “It forces upon our attention at the very
beginning the fact that all men are the children of one Father…Here Jesus cuts
away the illusion that the members of any nation, or race, or territory, or
group, or class, or color, are, in the sight of God, superior to any other
group. The final point is the implied
command that we are to pray not only for ourselves but for all mankind.”
It
seems that the world will continue to be embroiled in conflict of all kinds for
the foreseeable future, and the only hope I can see for my personal
serenity is to stay away from the
chatter that dominates the public discourse.
I still read, think and try to speak sparingly about the events going on
around me. It’s not that I don’t care, I
care as deeply as those passionate on either side of the spectrum. I think it is in
agreeing on what action should be taken that things fall apart, but I don’t
doubt the intentions of people of good will, and I pray for all of God’s
creations.
 |
| Rufus - the Zen master! |
