Here's an interesting piece on cultural fragmentation from Jeffrey Brown, who anchors the PBS News Hour. Back in the pre-Web era, I recall watching that show, back when it was McNeil-Lehrer, for it did good long-form reporting and discussion on issues that went beyond the headlines and the quick observation. Since then, I tend to not watch much TV news unless there is a major breaking item that doesn't lend itself to the Web.
Brown discusses the more combative nature of modern political discourse, closing with this imagry-
To make that point, he quoted from an interview with Israeli novelist David Grossman, whom Brown said tries to keep a focus on basic human problems in a place where it is all to easy to be overwhelmed by political issues and security problems.
"We are now in danger of becoming like a suit of armor, but without the knight inside," Brown recalled Grossman saying.
The more we feel under attack, the more we retreat to a siege mentality. We spend a lot of our energy defending against attacks and less on doing productive and constructive things.
The Armor of God doesn't restrict one from moving forward with life; the rhetroical armor we put up can do so, expecially if we go to confrontation mode as a matter of course.
What's the old quote? People shout loudest when their argument is weakest? Something like that. Yes, the medium is often the message. Even more so when the content is milquetoast. Bad stories and noise will fill the void. I spend a lot of time helping people learn how to make causal inferences, which helps with the overall quality of political discourse and often moves beyond messaging issues. Speaking the truth in love, however, will always be difficult.
Posted by: NKR | October 31, 2012 at 12:38 PM