America is spinning its wheels on what sells — never mind it’s not working and counterproductive to boot. It may be profitable, entertaining, and occasionally win an election — but shortsighted thinking has a habit of harming your own interests in the long run.
At the core of why my efforts don’t compute — is that my mission is not driven by changing your values, but rather the manner in which you pursue them.
Thanks to the internet and the cable clans paving the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd — everything is poisoned by perception and hypocrisy now. America’s in perennial pursuit of ideologies — warfare waged with:
opinions lightly adopted but firmly held . . . forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty, and fashion
— Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom
I have an idea for how to change that and a compelling case for why it would work. Just one problem — its multidimensional depth doesn’t sell.
Righting the trajectory of America by changing the dynamic of debate — just might. But in order to do that, you’d have to understand how we got here in the first place.
And therein lies the rub . . .
[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
What I have in mind is a framework for intellectually honest debate that allows for principles to breathe instead of being suffocated by narrative.
Speaking of which
Until the rise of podcasts, twitter, and the various forms of independent media / journalism, people weren’t really aware how legacy media was influencing their thinking. I think people are finally waking up and may surprise you here, especially if more talk about it.
New formats for people telling you what you want to hear is not what I call enlightenment. And those who couldn’t spot clearly dishonest actors before — think they’re wide awake now? The Twitter bio behind that quote begins with “Groupthink averse.”
It would never occur to him that everything in that Tweet is Groupthink 101.
The solution to this problem is more truth, not less
No, it’s not. You cannot forever beat something into the ground and sensibly believe it’ll make a dent someday. And even if by some miracle it does, wouldn’t you want to know if you could have cut out years or even decades had you been smart about it?
What does it say to you that such simplistic thinking as “more truth, not less” — is canon within these echo chambers that think they’re part of some revolution in reason?
And while repeatedly rehashing niche-based argument may be honest to a certain extent, it’s not intellectually honest. If it were, your behavior would reflect the principles you promote regardless of the context.
For 20 years, I’ve been practically spit on for practicing principles those same people preach. How do you reconcile that? No need — when you can just amplify the narrative with new media.
Narrative makes noise — and that sells like hotcakes.
That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of . . .
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word.
The fairly famous owner of the quote — once called my writing “brilliant” and was “blown away” by this site and signed up. Alas, he wasn’t too keen on the truth when I took his hero to task.
Never mind his hero’s history of hypocrisy that aligns with every word in that quote (on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history, no less). Not to mention he has a habit of toeing the party line.
All of which flies in the face of the principles upon which he’s put on a pedestal.
Surely someone who’s hailed as a voice of reason would welcome the truth and abide by his own words. Afraid not. He wasn’t about to look at undeniable evidence warranting that he change his mind:
So he changed the rules . . .
Right on cue | Never fails
And lo and behold — his followers fall in line with the same tactics to deny the obvious. A lot of that goin’ around.
That the unquestioning swat away scrutiny with glee — sure sounds a lot like legacy media to me. In the same interview from the source above, that guy said the following:
We should be above whatever the fad or the fashion is of any given day. We should be looking at the deep questions. We should be analytical. We should be emphasizing reason.
Only for problems that are popular and easy to perceive? Whatever’s in your wheelhouse? Is that as deep as your questions go?
And just where do I go to find the genuine article?
Where are those who welcome out-of-the-box thinking and are willing to put the time and effort into original ideas that don’t fit the formula?
The problems that plague America are interrelated — and anything short of addressing that is going nowhere. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country.
To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything.
Everyone’s trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them (think asymmetrical warfare). My idea calls for fiercely independent thinkers (to be fully realized), but right now — one will do.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much.
One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had . . .
One Voice Became Two 