An opinion piece by Talkeetna blogger Bill Was about the presidential campaign and polarized political culture, as portrayed by the mainstream media.
As this hellishly long election process grinds painfully to its conclusion I, for one, am both disgusted and exhausted by the process! Not only has it already been underway for more than a year but the overall atmosphere of the campaign continues to mine new levels of repugnance and revulsion. Civility is nowhere to be found nor is a substantive discussion of truly pertinent topics like the economy, terrorism, immigration and entitlement reform. Instead, the candidates of both parties would rather bait each other with abhorrent personal attacks. In addition said attacks are now targeting family members! Just what has happened to the concept of gathering to discuss issues employing decorum and respect? Apparently this approach has been discarded in favor of rancor and vitriol.
Without question there’s plenty of blame to go around starting with the candidates themselves. It seems the need to be truthful in one’s dealings fell by the wayside; indeed, the need to be truthful at all seems a lost concept. Apparently it is much more important to make an impression with one’s ego and bravado than be truthful. And the lame-stream media fuels this fire by affording the most coverage to the most outrageous actions and comments. I guess ratings supersede civility in a culture where few have an attention span longer than 30 seconds.
But neither of the aforementioned are honestly the root cause of this heinous situation. No, sadly the main reason we’re seeing such coarse and childish behavior is ‘we the people’ want it. Over the past sixty years there’s been a steady decline in morals and values within the American culture all in the name of ‘social progress’. Progressives point to this with pride as examples of the advancement of the American culture. Yet many continue to willing chip away at a myriad of the virtues which allowed this country to both grow and prosper. They view conservatives as Luddites clinging to past behaviors rather than embracing new social miens. Yet without continued social development and growth our culture will definitely become stagnant and eventually fail. Conservatives all too often view progressives (aka ‘liberals’) as crazed, morally bankrupt maniac’s hell bent on destroying anything ‘good’. Many conservatives will not at least consider, let alone embrace, the idea that as we evolve we must continue to adapt and that implies change.
So our culture has become polarized to extremes. Neither faction appears willing to just try to undertake a civilized dialog with the other regarding even the most basic of concepts like immigration. This, by itself, is a recipe for deadlock and thus we find ourselves embroiled in our current situation. Far too many people have stretched the questionable practice of ‘political correctness’ to new extremes. Doing this guarantees a lack of honest, open communication at a time when we truly need clear, concise conversation. But there’s more; with the advent of electronic communication in the form of email, tweeting and similar we’ve lost the notion of civilized, respectful communication. It seems since we do not have to face someone we feel we are free to say anything regardless of how disgusting or vile. Just visit virtually any chat room or forum and you can see endless examples of a total lack of common courtesies and civility. Apparently many folks have taken the old adage ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me’ to a new and despicable low.
Given this it shouldn’t be a surprise we have candidates willing to stoop to crass, bathroom humor and insults mirroring those most of us left behind on the grade school playground. In a very real sense we are getting exactly what we asked for or at least what the majority of Americans appear to desire. But does this do anything constructive for our political process let alone our culture? In a sense it really does seem to be one of the polar opposites that define today’s America. We are willing to forgo all aspects of civility and respect in favor of crass, boorish behavior juxtaposed against the prim and proper miasma of extreme political correctness. At this point I have to ask; “Is this the kind of ‘social progress’ we desire as a nation?”.
My sense is most folks would prefer not to continue down this path but are either unsure how to redirect our ‘advancement’ or are too overwhelmed by what it takes to maintain a satisfactory lifestyle to care. Regardless, we are experiencing the unfolding of this situation so we shouldn’t be surprised when our political race turns into an all-out free for all. Apparently, the candidate most willing to plumb the lowest depths of acrimony and rancor is most likely to get media attention and, hence, come out a victor. Yet there is a relatively simple ‘fix’ for this situation. If ‘we the people’ refused to sit enchanted in front of our media source of choice vapidly soaking up such behavior the media would cease running the imagery on a 24/7 basis. If we all chose, instead, to read about the campaign from the outlet of our choice we could affect an eventual and positive change. But for most people this would mean unplugging from the continual information bombardment of our technological time and instead investing in reading and making up our own minds.
With respect to the larger issue of a dramatically polarized population the answers are not so forthcoming. Obviously we need compromise but this cannot happen until we are amenable to conversing in a civilized and respectful manner. And we must put aside past issues and grievances! History will be an important part of any such discussions but a desire to dwell on perceived past wrongs and/or injustices will only poison the well of good intentions. But perhaps most importantly we must communicate in an open, honest and respectful fashion. This means avoiding extreme political correctness. It is far too important to resolve this issue than allow such efforts to be torpedoed by concern for a few people’s overly sensitive perceptions. We have the power and means to begin bridging this polarization but we really need the will!
