Sometimes I think we here in the United States are characters in some futuristic science fiction movie living in parallel, and visible to each other, but distinctly different realities. When I see polls that show opinions on different subjects that feeling is only reinforced.
As hard to believe as it might sound, in this country, two people can witness the same event and interpret what their seeing in complete contradiction to each other depending upon their political persuasion. The more devout they are to their particular ideology, the more diverse will be their views.
A prime example is the views of the riots at the U.S. Capitol that took place on January 6, 2021. The public was treated to live views of the mayhem, but what they saw differed depending on which network they tuned into.
Fox News, for example, which is a far-to-the-right network that has often amplified the big lie about the ‘stolen election of 2020’, was throughout its coverage sympathetic with the insurrectionists and even began trying to deflect the blame for what they were doing—and what we could clearly see them doing—on others. As days went by, the deflection increased, and even legislators who were the targets of the violence, shocked and outraged at first, began to change their tune to the point that a year after the riots, some of them were calling the rioters patriots who should be pardoned for their crimes.
Some even blamed the media itself—I’ve never been able to figure that one out. It’s as if, a news photographer who took a picture of a bank robber exiting the bank is responsible for the crime. In all fairness, hyperbole in covering the event wasn’t confined to the right. Left-leaning media outlets went into a tizzy as well, but to their credit, their ranting ratcheted back relatively quickly while the right-wing media, pundits, and politicians stayed on the same course, and continue to do so three years after the fact.
Another example of warped thinking based on where one gets information is the controversy over the state of Florida’s middle school social studies standards in 2023, particularly a sentence that read ‘enslaved people developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit.’
This statement drew condemnation from African American groups as well as educators and historians across the United States. The governor of Florida, while denying that he had any involvement in writing the standards, nonetheless defended it as being ‘rooted in whatever is factual.’ “They’re probably going to show that some of the folks eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” he said to a group of reporters.
The Republican National Commission even went so far as to accuse the American vice president of telling a ‘complete lie,’ when she called the standards an ‘insult.’
Needless to say, different information sources treated this incident differently depending on which side of the political divide they’re on, with the right-wing sources defending Florida’s decision.
Here’s the problem with situations like this. The views that people have on them are based on where they get their information, and far too many people restrict their information consumption to outlets that confirm what they already believe, and ignore or rebut information from any other sources.
What this creates, unfortunately, is a society where next-door neighbors, depending on their political views, can have opposite interpretations of the same incident, and neither interpretation needs to be grounded in objective, scientifically validated fact. Each person exists inside his or her own information bubble, essentially creating visible, parallel universes that can see each other but cannot communicate with or understand each other.
Caught between these two are those of us who do try to see the world as it is and not as the disinformation mills try to portray it. Unfortunately, few in political or policy making positions seem to be in that group anymore, because they’ve been drowned out by the noise, or driven out for failing to get on the bandwagon of lies, deceit, and discord.
I try to remain positive and think that one day we’ll all wake up, shake it off and start communicating rationally again. Then, I turn on the TV and it starts all over again. | NWI
