Polarity

by Cody Kilgore

I have to wonder if this has been said by almost every generation, but it strikes me that there is a great deal of arguing going on these days. It seems like every issue sparks intense debate, if not downright nastiness, from people that are always on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum on any, or every topic. Middle ground is rare.

Take for instance the recent spate of oil rig disasters that have happened in the Gulf of Mexico. You would think that the destruction that the BP rig caused would be appalling to just about everyone. But, when I took up the banner--along with thousands of others--to boycott BP, there was no end to people that would argue with me over the benefits of fossil fuels and the virtues of Big Oil, no matter how moderate a position I tried to communicate.

Any proposed answer to our recent economic problem is met with both praise and tongue-lashing. It seems someone always feels that they are about to lose something, whether we do something to help resolve it or do nothing at all. Even those that seemingly would have no vested interest, or would stand to lose or gain nothing feel passionately (and express it so) about something that might offer assistance or an advantage to someone else. Sometimes the argument boils down to a simple disagreement over what it fair (whatever “fair” may be).

Just the mere mention of President Obama, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or any Clinton is enough to light up my Facebook page with a litany of comments. But, that is understandable; I don’t think any of them serve as good examples of people willing to listen, understand, and find compromise with opposing views. Instead, they all seem willing to state, or stand for, the starkest opposition of the differing position.

I used to think the level of emotion I see demonstrated on behalf of one point or another was reserved for some of the deepest moral conflicts we’ve all been called to decide on, things like abortion and the death penalty. Not anymore. Those things still divide us deeply, but they seem to have lost some of their importance by virtue of how vehemently we argue almost anything these days.

There is a distinct tenor of "Us vs. Them" boiling up in our culture and I am not sure how it has evolved to the level that now exists. Something or someone has raised the rancor of the rhetoric these days. But who, or what?

I know we owe it, in part, to the ability we are all afforded by the internet and television to gather news and information and dispense our own communication. News comes to us faster now than ever before, and we are able to reach out to more people faster as well. And in that speed and volume of incoming and outgoing information, there lies a vast opportunity for varying interpretations, representations, facts, and opinions. Often, it's a blend of all four of those things.

It is an inarguable fact—an intention, even—that mass media impacts and influences both perception and opinion. Even in the act of writing and publishing this, I am engaged in that same effort (although no “mass” will likely read this). I hope, however, that I am influencing people to do what I think is the exact opposite that many in the media intend to do. I would like us to pause and examine differences personally, and try to ignore the media lords of mass exploitation, on both sides.

I won’t name any one person as being to blame, even though you are probably thinking their names (or the names you believe I would blame) as you read this. I know there are perpetrators on both sides, although I would argue that certain ones are far more inflammatory than others. My difficulty with these people is that they use imagery and language and slant to exploit people’s emotions and fears in order, quite frankly, to make money.

If you believe they are out to save mankind, or save our culture from dishonor, or save all of us from our immoral selves, you have bought too far into their message, and you would be better served to think more for yourself. Please turn off the tube, and step away from the remote.

I once heard an interview of an author who posited that we have several generations already in existence who have absolutely no idea of who they truly are personally, because the entirety of their personality and behavior was formed by what they saw on television. I know that seems like the often-argued point against mass media and it’s “dumbing down” of our culture, but he was speaking to something beyond that. He thought it went beyond forming our opinions; he believed it shaped how we think and feel, act and react, on the most basic levels. He believed that we learn more about those things now through our exposure to human behavior we see played out on our sets and read in print, where before we learned it through interaction and experience in our personal environments. I think he had a point.

And I think that makes it all too easy for those who want to make a buck by fanning the flames of hatred. In our willingness to be the blank slate for the people who can issue little more than spiteful commentary, we hand over to them our will, our independent thought, and the power of our one voice. It is as if it is easier to let them do our thinking for us, tell us what we should believe about anything in the public sphere, or even about ourselves.

I have to wonder where we would be today, or what the tone of our discussions would be today, without the influence of mass media. Or, what would it all look like if we were only without the venom spewed by shallow, self-promoting show hosts whose main interest is only in stirring the pot. How would we all relate, if we were left to decide things for ourselves in the absence of such influences? Would there be such a division between us?

I think a much needed Emersonian “Self Reliance” is too rare these days. Emerson once espoused, when we were a very young nation, that we had to stop framing ourselves and defining ourselves as a nation and a culture by our comparison to what it was we left behind, and that we needed to make a clean break for ourselves. He proposed this not only in politics, but in art and literature and education, and within our collective and personal psyche. He believed in the confidence and power of one’s dependence on their individual thought and action. Thoreau, mulling in the solitude of Walden’s pond, professed the same, and went further in saying that we didn’t need a government or collective entity to act or think for us, in matters that are most important.

The common thread of those two admirable men (or my take on them) is that we need to think more for ourselves, define ourselves and our thoughts and opinions more individually, and that when we do, a personal strength is constructed that little can chip away at. Such a resolve, I propose, would make agreement, and disagreements, easier.