I don't believe in the "Fairness Doctrine" since it is far from fair. It is anti-free market because it seeks to insert opposing and extraneous opinions (usually liberal) into successful niche market (usually conservative) talk show radio programs. If no one wants to listen to liberal talk then the market needs to weed out what does not appeal and reward what does.
Having said that, though, I have stopped listening to virtually all the conservative talk shows that I used to listen to (even when I did not agree with them I enjoyed their vigor and perspectives). Why? Because I cannot stand more negativity and that is all they offer right now. One can be faithful and patriotic "party in the opposition" yet still be reasonable, proactive and encouraging toward those who have won the elections, and who now bear the burden of producing results in this dire, dire time.
Conservative talk radio, in general, has become too unmitigatingly negative toward President Obama, those who are in office, and the majority of the USA citizenry who voted for them, such that listening to them feels unAmerican to me. So just turn the dial if you disagree, as I have.
Honestly, I cannot listen to one more moment of how awful this country is, how ignorant the Democrats are, how wonderfully pious and believing one is in God (specifically your denomination of course), how many soldiers you have entertained, and how smart you were to start collecting gold and building your gun festooned bunker years ago, and how lazy people are who do not "get a job and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." It's like a scratch on the record that makes the needle skip and fall back into the same place over and over and over again and just won't stop. Michael Steele sure has his work cut out for him with these talk show "frontmen" making the conservatives look like they are gloating over America's fall.
Showing posts with label conservative talk shows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conservative talk shows. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cultural diplomacy, ordinary debate case study
Here is another important concept in cultural diplomacy and-in fact-an essential part of any genuine dialogue or debate, whether there is a cultural difference or simply a political or lifestyle difference.
I thought of presenting this topic today as a result of listening to a caller to a morning talk show. The caller was able to get through I guess around five sentences of his opinion, but in the way of most people, was still developing his position when he was interrupted by the kind of bristling talk show host. The caller had triggered a quick change from a rather mellow tone to this bristling reaction by the talk host because the caller stated that he felt the USA is in need of a revolution. Now, the caller never got a chance to state what exactly he means by “revolution” (one of the most overworked terms of the past forty years) because the talk show host assumed he meant violent revolution. So the talk show host gave what I’m sure he felt was a really responsible “reply,” focusing on God (this is a conservative show) and the necessity to avoid violent revolution. Well…. Here’s the problem with that response.
First of all, as I said, “revolution” is one of the most overworked words of the past forty years, and it means at least a hundred different things-a hundred different types of “revolution”-depending on who you are speaking to and about what subject! You need to give a person who uses that word at least a few sentences to sketch (even in rapid fire “talk show” formats) what type of revolution he or she means. Just because they reference the American Revolution and the Civil War does not mean that they are indicated violent government overthrow. But it was those references that caused to talk show to immediately assume that the caller was alluding to a military revolution, but there was absolutely no reason to believe that was what he meant. So the most important rule in any dialogue is not to stop listening when a “code word” or concept is used and, instead, at least ask for a few sentences from the other person to clarify what they mean.
It’s hard to get into someone’s head, so this is how I recommend you obtain the most accurate information about your conversationalist’s position. Ask him or her, “How exactly would you envision this working if ideally your suggestion would take place in the best of circumstances?” Imagine the wide variety of possible replies to the “revolution” scenario. The guy might respond, “Well, I think that states that disagree with the federal government on such and such an issue should break away.” Then you’d have to ask what he means by “break away,” since that might simply mean a state constitutional amendment regarding a specific topic, hardly a call to marching armies! If you respect the person and give them time to at least sketch out in a sentence or two what they mean and how they’d like to see it happen, you actually find out information and perspective that is far beyond what your knee jerk reaction and assumptions dictate, and thus, then, hijack your attention and the fittingness of your response. I believe that at least ninety percent of conversations, debates, public diplomacy and presentations of views are hijacked by inattention and erroneous assumptions once a “code word” is spoken and thus defensive and hostile mechanisms are triggered.
The second reason this is a problem is that suppose the worst is true, that your debating combatant does have a radical view, but you take off on a tangent without allowing him or her to express the full view, they can, legitimately, discount your response. Just as you stopped listening to him or her at a code word, once they realize you are only responding to the code word and not what they are actually saying, they shut you off in return since your response is not relevant to their belief. Thus there is no point to having had the conversation at all. Both liberals and conservatives need to listen to me and heed my advice on this regard. You don’t “mitigate” or “argue” against what you feel are “radical” views if you do not get into specifics and if you jump to conclusions and shut them off, you miss a “conversion” possibility and simply harden their views (whatever they may be since you didn’t actually stop to find out the specifics).
How would this work? Suppose this guy was advocating what you think is a horrible scenario, which is that he thinks that some group should run amok in the USA advocating armed revolution, and suppose you uncover this via respectful and prolonged questioning. Hmm, so what would you do then? If anything you should think that dialogue is even more important, since a lot is at stake if this guy is feeling that armed revolution is either desirable or sadly inevitable (notice that this is another nuance that you must explore: does he or she want what he or she describes, or do they think it is inevitable? There’s a world of difference in stance and thus in reasonable reply). Here’s how I would handle such a conversation. I would ask him or her how they would deal with a number of scenarios and let them talk and think it through. For example, I would ask, “Suppose in your ideal world you called for revolution but only one state agreed? Would you consider that a success, in that all who agree with you and your views could move to that state and live in the legality (whatever issues) that you called for revolution regarding?”
See, here I’ve painted a scenario. I’ve said, “OK, let’s assume that the revolution you advocate works, but not as much as you hoped for, because only one state agrees and achieves revolution in the area that you are concerned about. What would you do next? Would that be enough for you?” When you allow the person to describe specifics of what they want (with the help of intelligent coaching by you), you accomplish a lot of good things. 1) You actually understand what he or she is saying and what their position actually is, 2) You can target your concerns and objections with accuracy, thus productively prolonging the fruitfulness of the dialogue and 3) Both of you have to openly evaluate possible merits to his or her position, and possible problems with his or her position. You may find out that he or she is onto something valid, buried underneath their invalid methods of achieving it! Likewise, while you may not achieve results on the spot, the person will leave with some serious thinking to do, perhaps something like, “Hmm, I never thought of that. Suppose my revolution was successful, but only for one state. What would that mean? Would I actually move my family to that state? Maybe that’s not quite the solution I thought it was.”
Whenever people flip out and overreact over code words, it’s worse than if they never had the conversation at all. More damage is done by having repeated hardened calloused encounters between the usual “misunderstanding combatants.” Every time someone says, for example, “I believe the Palestinians should have a homeland” and the other person replies, “I do not,” both have damaged the entire dialogue and the progress of their own causes. When you distill an entire thorny social, moral, cultural, diplomatic and governmental woe to “Homeland? Yes or no,” you pour more verbal and mental concrete on fallacious “opposing” positions. I mean, think about it, one person may be envisioning one type of homeland structure while the other one is imagining something completely different. You never get the chance to find out, work with the legitimate positions, discover common ground, and unfold many nuances of options rather than a theoretical “pro” or “con.”
So long as the person you are dialoguing with has humane good will, you can and should listen to the fullness of his or her position, even if it is diametrically opposed to your own views. Thus, while I believe that those of good will on either side of the abortion position should dialogue, I would not have recommended that either of them try to dialogue with Pol Pot. Ninety nine plus percent of humanity is not despot maniacs, and the vast majority of them are just trying to get by in life as best as possible. If a person is not a despot maniac, than you should take care to actually question them and listen to them about their full beliefs; you might learn something and actually change your own mind.
To summarize: 1) Discipline your thinking and analysis to ignore code words and not derail your assessment of a person’s position just because he or she uses a code word, 2) Ask the person to describe specific implementations of the fulfillment of their views, 3) If they are inarticulate, be kind and help them to articulate what they are saying, since erudition and glibness are not indicators of value of idea, and lack of those qualities of presentation do not diminish the potential value of an idea, 4) Always recall that unless the person is a despot maniac, he or she is just trying to get through life as best as they can and thus they share something with you.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
I thought of presenting this topic today as a result of listening to a caller to a morning talk show. The caller was able to get through I guess around five sentences of his opinion, but in the way of most people, was still developing his position when he was interrupted by the kind of bristling talk show host. The caller had triggered a quick change from a rather mellow tone to this bristling reaction by the talk host because the caller stated that he felt the USA is in need of a revolution. Now, the caller never got a chance to state what exactly he means by “revolution” (one of the most overworked terms of the past forty years) because the talk show host assumed he meant violent revolution. So the talk show host gave what I’m sure he felt was a really responsible “reply,” focusing on God (this is a conservative show) and the necessity to avoid violent revolution. Well…. Here’s the problem with that response.
First of all, as I said, “revolution” is one of the most overworked words of the past forty years, and it means at least a hundred different things-a hundred different types of “revolution”-depending on who you are speaking to and about what subject! You need to give a person who uses that word at least a few sentences to sketch (even in rapid fire “talk show” formats) what type of revolution he or she means. Just because they reference the American Revolution and the Civil War does not mean that they are indicated violent government overthrow. But it was those references that caused to talk show to immediately assume that the caller was alluding to a military revolution, but there was absolutely no reason to believe that was what he meant. So the most important rule in any dialogue is not to stop listening when a “code word” or concept is used and, instead, at least ask for a few sentences from the other person to clarify what they mean.
It’s hard to get into someone’s head, so this is how I recommend you obtain the most accurate information about your conversationalist’s position. Ask him or her, “How exactly would you envision this working if ideally your suggestion would take place in the best of circumstances?” Imagine the wide variety of possible replies to the “revolution” scenario. The guy might respond, “Well, I think that states that disagree with the federal government on such and such an issue should break away.” Then you’d have to ask what he means by “break away,” since that might simply mean a state constitutional amendment regarding a specific topic, hardly a call to marching armies! If you respect the person and give them time to at least sketch out in a sentence or two what they mean and how they’d like to see it happen, you actually find out information and perspective that is far beyond what your knee jerk reaction and assumptions dictate, and thus, then, hijack your attention and the fittingness of your response. I believe that at least ninety percent of conversations, debates, public diplomacy and presentations of views are hijacked by inattention and erroneous assumptions once a “code word” is spoken and thus defensive and hostile mechanisms are triggered.
The second reason this is a problem is that suppose the worst is true, that your debating combatant does have a radical view, but you take off on a tangent without allowing him or her to express the full view, they can, legitimately, discount your response. Just as you stopped listening to him or her at a code word, once they realize you are only responding to the code word and not what they are actually saying, they shut you off in return since your response is not relevant to their belief. Thus there is no point to having had the conversation at all. Both liberals and conservatives need to listen to me and heed my advice on this regard. You don’t “mitigate” or “argue” against what you feel are “radical” views if you do not get into specifics and if you jump to conclusions and shut them off, you miss a “conversion” possibility and simply harden their views (whatever they may be since you didn’t actually stop to find out the specifics).
How would this work? Suppose this guy was advocating what you think is a horrible scenario, which is that he thinks that some group should run amok in the USA advocating armed revolution, and suppose you uncover this via respectful and prolonged questioning. Hmm, so what would you do then? If anything you should think that dialogue is even more important, since a lot is at stake if this guy is feeling that armed revolution is either desirable or sadly inevitable (notice that this is another nuance that you must explore: does he or she want what he or she describes, or do they think it is inevitable? There’s a world of difference in stance and thus in reasonable reply). Here’s how I would handle such a conversation. I would ask him or her how they would deal with a number of scenarios and let them talk and think it through. For example, I would ask, “Suppose in your ideal world you called for revolution but only one state agreed? Would you consider that a success, in that all who agree with you and your views could move to that state and live in the legality (whatever issues) that you called for revolution regarding?”
See, here I’ve painted a scenario. I’ve said, “OK, let’s assume that the revolution you advocate works, but not as much as you hoped for, because only one state agrees and achieves revolution in the area that you are concerned about. What would you do next? Would that be enough for you?” When you allow the person to describe specifics of what they want (with the help of intelligent coaching by you), you accomplish a lot of good things. 1) You actually understand what he or she is saying and what their position actually is, 2) You can target your concerns and objections with accuracy, thus productively prolonging the fruitfulness of the dialogue and 3) Both of you have to openly evaluate possible merits to his or her position, and possible problems with his or her position. You may find out that he or she is onto something valid, buried underneath their invalid methods of achieving it! Likewise, while you may not achieve results on the spot, the person will leave with some serious thinking to do, perhaps something like, “Hmm, I never thought of that. Suppose my revolution was successful, but only for one state. What would that mean? Would I actually move my family to that state? Maybe that’s not quite the solution I thought it was.”
Whenever people flip out and overreact over code words, it’s worse than if they never had the conversation at all. More damage is done by having repeated hardened calloused encounters between the usual “misunderstanding combatants.” Every time someone says, for example, “I believe the Palestinians should have a homeland” and the other person replies, “I do not,” both have damaged the entire dialogue and the progress of their own causes. When you distill an entire thorny social, moral, cultural, diplomatic and governmental woe to “Homeland? Yes or no,” you pour more verbal and mental concrete on fallacious “opposing” positions. I mean, think about it, one person may be envisioning one type of homeland structure while the other one is imagining something completely different. You never get the chance to find out, work with the legitimate positions, discover common ground, and unfold many nuances of options rather than a theoretical “pro” or “con.”
So long as the person you are dialoguing with has humane good will, you can and should listen to the fullness of his or her position, even if it is diametrically opposed to your own views. Thus, while I believe that those of good will on either side of the abortion position should dialogue, I would not have recommended that either of them try to dialogue with Pol Pot. Ninety nine plus percent of humanity is not despot maniacs, and the vast majority of them are just trying to get by in life as best as possible. If a person is not a despot maniac, than you should take care to actually question them and listen to them about their full beliefs; you might learn something and actually change your own mind.
To summarize: 1) Discipline your thinking and analysis to ignore code words and not derail your assessment of a person’s position just because he or she uses a code word, 2) Ask the person to describe specific implementations of the fulfillment of their views, 3) If they are inarticulate, be kind and help them to articulate what they are saying, since erudition and glibness are not indicators of value of idea, and lack of those qualities of presentation do not diminish the potential value of an idea, 4) Always recall that unless the person is a despot maniac, he or she is just trying to get through life as best as they can and thus they share something with you.
I hope that you have found this helpful.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Talk shows: turning the other mean cheek
I’ve turned on the computer earlier in the day than I usually do, because it’s obvious that I need to share how fed up I am with something. I’ve even postponed the refreshing hair wash that I was going to give myself (using a wonderful Bath & Body Works Eucalptus Spearmint Volumizing Shampoo and Conditioner I’ve recently discovered). So haters who like to mock my lack of being “hot” can rest assured I’m typing this with hair that needs to be washed LOL. I need to get a few blogs out of the way first.
This blogging will condemn most conservative talk show hosts. Now, left wingers, do not rejoice, because I’m just adding them to my disappointment list, where you have already resided for a very long time. Because I “work” (the spiritual directing and writing) at home, and do not have a TV, my radio is on for most of the day. I enjoy getting to know the “radio personalities” and listening to the issues, and of course, being quite conservative in many issues (I used to be classical liberal but that has become depraved in values and stupid in vital issues that liberal has no meaning or significance in my life anymore) I’ve listened to quite a few of the conservatives. I used to listen to them on Fox, but have pretty much stopped. Patriotism is not jingoism alternated with celebrity scuttlebutt. The people who I cheered because they correctly identified and fought the “War on Christmas” (which is true and if anything is understated) have become boring in their yapping. So I’ve stopped listening to the ones I used to listen to on Fox (and you know who the big names are) because I just can’t stand their solution-less whining. True, O’Reilly has gone after lenient judges and pedophilia, which I applaud. But the growing emphasis on celebrity and pop psychology has turned me off. Hannity is just shrieking this past year, and his lack of charity toward a Catholic priest, turning a great chance to talk about morals and societal/individual pressures into a total waste, turned me off. I wrote to Colmes (his Fox talk show co-host) to say that while I don’t agree with Colmes about as much, gosh, at least he is civilized and kind. Even the daytime hosts that I used to like, Shepherd Smith, Neil Cavuto, John Gibson…. I don’t know if it’s producer advice or programming necessity but they, especially Smith, developed a slyness of style that didn’t work for Aaron Brown of CNN (remember him?) and is not working for them. Cavuto and Gibson are still very good and I’m not writing against them, but I’m saying since I dropped out of the line up, I don’t catch them anymore.
So I had turned to listening to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the Schnitt show. I’m listening to Beck now. I cannot believe what has happened to him. He has been virally attacked by a combination of Messiah complex and being barn sour. (For those of you who are non pastoral, barn sour refers to a horse that is kept in the barn so much that it turns ornery and mean). He has such a personal meanness now that I actually don’t recognize him. He thinks he has no choices but act this way, but he is wrong. When mocking opponents or stories that are or may be ridiculous he twists the knife in an unbelievable way (barn sour), and calls himself justified needing to “wake people up” (Messiah complex). Rush I dropped because his shtick is so obnoxious that it cannot be tolerated even as self parody anymore. Like the others he turns the other mean cheek. By this I mean that because liberals are mean and have virtually destroyed the morals of this country, he is satirical and mean in return. So I’ve turned him off too. Schnitt was an experiment, and there are times he was interesting to listen to. Same with McConnell. But then it seems as soon as I start listening, what I hear in the first few shows starts to evolve into something very unpleasant. It’s almost like just because I’m listening they think they can become smug, sly and hostile toward stupid call-ins and about their superior insight in general. And trust me, as with the average Joe, I go into every communications encounter erring on the side of openness and being ready to like the person and listen to their message (though of course I am not persuaded by anyone, since I already know my stance on all issues. I like to hear the public forum discussion however). So I’ve turned them off too. But Beck in particular has seemed to lose his balance and his mind the past few weeks. I’m not surprised because like I said, there is a pattern that I’ve noticed when I listen to “radio personalities” that at some point they become inflated to the point of being counterproductive, to put it politely. So it’s going to be “Bye, bye, bye Beck” I deem.
So what am I listening to? ESPN Sports Radio. Sports has always been the refuge of the real. Even if games are fixed and players are arrested, it still is a physical event where someone and a ball needs to get from one spot to another, and people enjoy watching it and talking about it. I’ve always enjoyed watching sports (when channel surfing I’d stop for just about any sport, if it flickered I’d find it interesting!) Now I’ve abandoned listening to the public forum of these vital, terribly important issues for the future of humanity because the meanness and self superiority of the radio and TV personalities have driven me away. Give me the Cowherd any day, and Jason Smith at night. Even if they personally have issues, LOL, at least the format requires them to talk about sports, which is good. People, this country and world are in grave trouble, and this is not a news flash. But what is a newsflash is that if I can’t stomach listening to people’s “public forum” discussion (something I have vigorously defended) and turn to sports instead, well, that’s not a good sign. Turning the other mean cheek never fixed a single problem on earth (or in those other two places either, by the way). It just takes everyone to that hell on earth place that humans seem to do so well.
This blogging will condemn most conservative talk show hosts. Now, left wingers, do not rejoice, because I’m just adding them to my disappointment list, where you have already resided for a very long time. Because I “work” (the spiritual directing and writing) at home, and do not have a TV, my radio is on for most of the day. I enjoy getting to know the “radio personalities” and listening to the issues, and of course, being quite conservative in many issues (I used to be classical liberal but that has become depraved in values and stupid in vital issues that liberal has no meaning or significance in my life anymore) I’ve listened to quite a few of the conservatives. I used to listen to them on Fox, but have pretty much stopped. Patriotism is not jingoism alternated with celebrity scuttlebutt. The people who I cheered because they correctly identified and fought the “War on Christmas” (which is true and if anything is understated) have become boring in their yapping. So I’ve stopped listening to the ones I used to listen to on Fox (and you know who the big names are) because I just can’t stand their solution-less whining. True, O’Reilly has gone after lenient judges and pedophilia, which I applaud. But the growing emphasis on celebrity and pop psychology has turned me off. Hannity is just shrieking this past year, and his lack of charity toward a Catholic priest, turning a great chance to talk about morals and societal/individual pressures into a total waste, turned me off. I wrote to Colmes (his Fox talk show co-host) to say that while I don’t agree with Colmes about as much, gosh, at least he is civilized and kind. Even the daytime hosts that I used to like, Shepherd Smith, Neil Cavuto, John Gibson…. I don’t know if it’s producer advice or programming necessity but they, especially Smith, developed a slyness of style that didn’t work for Aaron Brown of CNN (remember him?) and is not working for them. Cavuto and Gibson are still very good and I’m not writing against them, but I’m saying since I dropped out of the line up, I don’t catch them anymore.
So I had turned to listening to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the Schnitt show. I’m listening to Beck now. I cannot believe what has happened to him. He has been virally attacked by a combination of Messiah complex and being barn sour. (For those of you who are non pastoral, barn sour refers to a horse that is kept in the barn so much that it turns ornery and mean). He has such a personal meanness now that I actually don’t recognize him. He thinks he has no choices but act this way, but he is wrong. When mocking opponents or stories that are or may be ridiculous he twists the knife in an unbelievable way (barn sour), and calls himself justified needing to “wake people up” (Messiah complex). Rush I dropped because his shtick is so obnoxious that it cannot be tolerated even as self parody anymore. Like the others he turns the other mean cheek. By this I mean that because liberals are mean and have virtually destroyed the morals of this country, he is satirical and mean in return. So I’ve turned him off too. Schnitt was an experiment, and there are times he was interesting to listen to. Same with McConnell. But then it seems as soon as I start listening, what I hear in the first few shows starts to evolve into something very unpleasant. It’s almost like just because I’m listening they think they can become smug, sly and hostile toward stupid call-ins and about their superior insight in general. And trust me, as with the average Joe, I go into every communications encounter erring on the side of openness and being ready to like the person and listen to their message (though of course I am not persuaded by anyone, since I already know my stance on all issues. I like to hear the public forum discussion however). So I’ve turned them off too. But Beck in particular has seemed to lose his balance and his mind the past few weeks. I’m not surprised because like I said, there is a pattern that I’ve noticed when I listen to “radio personalities” that at some point they become inflated to the point of being counterproductive, to put it politely. So it’s going to be “Bye, bye, bye Beck” I deem.
So what am I listening to? ESPN Sports Radio. Sports has always been the refuge of the real. Even if games are fixed and players are arrested, it still is a physical event where someone and a ball needs to get from one spot to another, and people enjoy watching it and talking about it. I’ve always enjoyed watching sports (when channel surfing I’d stop for just about any sport, if it flickered I’d find it interesting!) Now I’ve abandoned listening to the public forum of these vital, terribly important issues for the future of humanity because the meanness and self superiority of the radio and TV personalities have driven me away. Give me the Cowherd any day, and Jason Smith at night. Even if they personally have issues, LOL, at least the format requires them to talk about sports, which is good. People, this country and world are in grave trouble, and this is not a news flash. But what is a newsflash is that if I can’t stomach listening to people’s “public forum” discussion (something I have vigorously defended) and turn to sports instead, well, that’s not a good sign. Turning the other mean cheek never fixed a single problem on earth (or in those other two places either, by the way). It just takes everyone to that hell on earth place that humans seem to do so well.
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