Objectivity

If people could decide for themselves they wouldn’t need an objective press, they’d be able to hear many subjective stories and tell which one was true. Sadly, today we have some of the world’s most experienced, highest-paid liars, and some of the poorest, least-educated constituents in history. The people can not make their own decisions, lacking basic information, and don’t have any objective media to help them, just a cacophony of news personalities or entities saying “I think,” or “it sounds like” or “some people are worried that…”

Paeans to “objectivity” are almost always thinly-disguised attempts at putting facts next to opinions, or truths next to lies, and saying to the audience at home “you can decide for yourself.”

People hate to be told they’re wrong, and plenty of people are uninformed right now, thanks to the media’s refusal to stand for truth over falsehood, and the constant political attacks on education in every budget fight since God. Today’s viewers are wrong alright, and there is a market for appeasing them. Infotainment channels and websites abound to keep everyone entertained and believing whatever their misconceptions are.

The vast majority of media has no interest in objectivity. This used to be the sole function of media, and now it is the largest void, the elephant not in the room where you’d expect him. Anyone who wants objectivity nowadays had better go get it themselves.

You wonder why more mass-movements for popular change haven’t begun, in the age of instantaneously-available information. But people don’t trust the internet, they trust the TV.

It turns out that TV is only a stream of visual and auditory information. It dulls the nose and blinds the fingers to touch, it makes the tongue stop tasting important flavors. We rely so heavily on our eyes and ears via television and the internet, we have failed to realize that if we were in-studio, television personalities would be far less attractive, smelly, perhaps would not shake hands like someone you can trust.

People trust the newspapers. As though it’s impossible to print lies.

But you can trust what you see and hear, right?

What Wisconsin Means

This recall effort, if successful in taking control of the WI State Senate from Republicans, would be unprecedented. The fact that it has come this far (a state-wide recall election after a Governor’s budget makes too many draconian cuts and changes), this fast, tells you that it is important. This is the first real poll for the 2012 Presidential and Congressional elections. I want to know how many Democrats it will take to screw this up.

Person Versus Society

We are each a little person in a great big world. The competing values systems swirling around us are all reflections of this dichotomy. Is there a synthesis of personal values versus societal concerns? Will our brains ever reason themselves into personally pursuing a better society? Or are we stuck with the society we have, full of people who are all in it only for themselves?

All these self-interested people are on a suicide-trip over a cliff. Can they be saved, and brought into the fold of society?

The self-serving society is in a suicide-trip over a cliff. Can it be saved, brought into the service of all people?

This cycle is a doomsday machine. We live as though we have five globes to consume and pollute. We have one. It’s sad to watch.