I rushed home from my job on the eve of the debates to watch Govenor Sarah Palin(a.k.a Brett Hull) and Joe Biden (a.k.a Skeletor) duke it out. These two fought back and forth, both trying to bolster support for their running mates and pushing their respective agendas. As for me, I finished watching the heavyweight fight and did three things. One, I itched my feet. I did this because I had been standing all day and the base of my heels were very irritated. Two, I made a glass of chocolate milk. This occurred because I happen to think chocolate milk is one of the most refreshing and underrated beverages of all time. Third, I tried to remember if anything that either candidate had said, actually caused me to have a rational thought. Or perhaps one of these two politicians had caused me to re-evaluate my position on an issue that I cared deeply about? I'm sure that if any of the aforementioned possibilities took place I likely would have still itched my feet, but would have thought twice about pouring my self that chocolate milk.
A "Debate" as defined by Webster's dictionary is : A discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints. What Webster forgets to mention is that it's imperative to support these opposing viewpoints with researched effort and supporting argument. That, for example, when you contend "Bernie Kosar is the greatest quarterback to play the game of football", You had better have some convincing arguments and facts that at least makes this case plausible. It's not appropriate to just say "just because" or "because he is from Cleveland". Just like it isn't appropriate to use contentions like "Because I'm from Scranton Pennsylvania", therefore I understand the peril of the entire American working class. Nor is it appropriate to boast of selling a private jet on Ebay as evidence of the sort of moral character I may or may not posses.
We as Americans and consumers for too long have accepted this sort of infantile behavior from our public servants. We allow politicians to " Fight Evildoers" or "Put America First" without really demanding of these servants to service us with some concrete information. It seems to me that a frightening amounts of people are satisfied with voting public servants into office without knowing whom or why they vote for them. When asked why? they respond with a slogans like "Because he/she is going to shake up Washington" or "Because he/she it going to bring about change". Are you serious? Maybe the American people as well as our politicians are feeding into a bigger system that we may not be aware of. Our television, media sources, and their content are shaping the way we gather information. It also may be polluting our political and democratic system. (This may be equivalent to throwing trash on a sidewalk in downtown Newark, NJ) Nonetheless it's still dangerous.
Here is what I'm trying to get at. It doesn't matter what your political stance is! (really!) The majority of American's have her interest at heart. Yet, when watching these debates we should all be aware that we are being fed a commodity. We are eating "dis-information". The Humanist writer Neil Postman in his Book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" elaborates on this phenomenon. He states "Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information-misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information-information that creates the illusion of knowing something but in fact leads one away from knowing." This theory is based on the premise, as Postman explains, that information has been turned into a commodity throughout the new age of telegraphy and television. That information and even understanding of truth is mutated in order to make it entertaining and therefore easy to sell. That in essence we'd rather be entertained voters rather than informed voters.
The Vice-Presidential Debates were over and Postman's ideas seemed to really ring true. Even at the beginning of this story I referred to the debate as a heavyweight match. Somehow our debates have become fodder that competes with The WWE (formerly WWF). I'm not kidding, many people including me, watched this debate like we would watch a pay-per-view match between pro wrestlers Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. What they actually were saying became secondary. The debates are set up by the television medium to be a platform for candidates to say as little as possible without making a mistake. Actually elaborating or having passion for a topic hurts chances of being understood or liked. As a candidate, if you say as little as possible without any missteps, while looking good doing it. You have most likely won the hearts of the American people.
Seeing how this election process has gone, it seems very clear that Postman was on to something. As we talk about Sarah Palin's new hair-do or her latest interview. Know this, we are all at the troff of the information buffet and the t.v networks are all Burger-king's, Macdonald's, and Taco Bell's giving us cheap unhealthy food that tastes good but in the long run will kill us. Put down the Burger America! Go to the market and cook at home. Think about what you eat and what it does to your health. Let's make an educated choice!. Let's not"run for the border" or "have it our way" this election. If we continue, Postman argues that "we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge? Well Mr. Postman, we wouldn't comprehend certain truths of this world. Feet itch, chocolate milk is inconceivably good, and Bernie Kosar is the greatest quarterback to play football. Hey! just because he's from Cleveland.
3 comments:
The ignorance of the American people as voters is certainly a problem. Millions of people will vote for John McCain or Barack Obama simply because they "think" they are either republican or democrat. Most of these people do not even know half of the issues their respective party supports, yet they will continue to stick to their party lines because mom or dad said so, or the media told them to. Let's make educated decisions people and do a little bit of research.
Now to the important stuff:
Chocolate milk is absolutely one of the most underrated beverages of our time. The cold, the sugar, the thickness... it's filling, refreshing, goes well with breakfast, goes well with dessert, is classy, is casual...it's everything a drink should be and so much more. Well said.
i enjoyed this article for a few reasons
1.) you stayed unbiased toward either canidates through your writing and made us see what's really going on underneath those "joker like smiles" and winking eyes
2.) i too, believe in the power of chocolate milk. ovaltine or nesquik, is their really a choice?
3.)i've cooking a lot more for myself, but today decided to go to wendy's. i just wasn't satisfied! once you started "eating healthy" its hard to go to mexi-melts and # 2 combos.
Yesterday must have been chocolate milk day because I also imbibed.
I will do you good to take a look at the Lincoln-Douglas debates. I attach here a small portion of Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the final debate of 1858 in Alton, Ill. Look at and listen in your mind to the language. It is a little long but it is worth remembering we were once like this. Here is Lincoln:
"The quotation that I happened to make in that Springfield speech, that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to the judge, was part and parcel of the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic institutions of the different States is necessary and indispensable. I do not dispute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that. I shall very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law here, in Illinois, where he have no cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have oysters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite as well as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that the variety in the soil and climate and face of the country, and consequent variety in the industrial pursuits and productions of a country, require systems of laws conforming to this variety in the natural features of the country. I understand quite as well as Judge Douglas, that if we here raise a barrel of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That produces commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends. We like one another the more for it. And I understand as well as Judge Douglas, or anybody else, that these mutual accommodations are the cements which bind together the different parts of this Union; that instead of being a thing to "divide the house" -- figuratively expressing the Union -- they tend to sustain it; they are the props of the house tending always to hold it up.
But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel between these things and this institution of slavery? I do not see that there is any parallel at all between them. Consider it. When have we had any difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the cranberry laws of Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the pine-lumber laws of Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour? When have we had any quarrels over these things?"
I think the problem is us. We ask too little from our debates. And we get it. The format is silly. It does not permit any real development of ideas. Everyone waits for the gottacha moment. The focus is on the "look" of the candidate. As you point out, the attention to the physically attratctive is paramount. It began with the first televised debate. I am old enough to remember seeing the Kennedy-Nixon debates. Kennedy won to a large degree because he was cute and Nixon sweated. Really.
In any event, your article is well balanced and appreciated by someone like me, struggling to make sense of the noise.
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