today's tripe
i guess it would be best if i keep writing things. well..maybe that's not true. i was reading the list of fallacious arguments. it makes me happy and mad at the same time. because i can think of these arguments and justifications coming out of the mouths of the politicians and media idiots i hear all the time. i have to say, that upon reflection, anyone i've ever heard speaking from a public office is a moron. perhaps they're not morons themselves, because many of their words are written for them by others, and those writers may not be morons either. so i'm left with this explanation: i've talked before about how communication requires that both the person sending the message and the person receiving it have to be using words and ideas the other can understand. and if you're a good communicator you'll do your best to speak in the way that best conveys your message (not necessarily the most elegant words, but those that will be best understood), so on that note, consider that because all these public officials are talking to us (the american public) they are using the words they've discovered will get their point across the best--i.e. catchy slogans and idiotic rhetoric, and loaded questions and appeals to authority and dogged recitation of false or misleading statements because if you hear it enough times you'll think it's more than garbage.. it's garbage you hear alot. so i think that's the point. they're that way because they require our approval for survival. how parasitic is that? they have to rule us to survive (maybe they can't make enough to feed themselves by other means) and once they are ruling us, they have to lie to us to keep that position. i'm glad i didn't pursue any of these fields.. like politcal science or journalism.. i would be angry all the time. and i'd probably end up moving to some other country. why am i an optimist about the flaws of individuals but an extreme pessimist when it comes to the flaws in this country and it's mechanism of government? why. well.. at least i'm not angry right now.
3 Comments:
You have an interesting point about journalism. While I'll agree that today's media is over-active to the point of redundancy in their sound-bites and "coverage" (if you can call it that), I think there was a middle age of American journalism when journalists did hold themselves to a higher standard. (Early American journalism was all ****ed up, but that's for another day.) Perhaps those unfortunate folk we're subjected to these days have just lost a sense of standard.
Screwtape
P.S. Isn't the usage devolution of the word "standard" just depressing?
yes.. that's possible, there could have been a time, like when the muckrakers thought it was time to clean up the child labor atrocities and started telling people exactly what was going on.. but now, there are PR people, who exist simply to make that muck seem like gold. and bush's social security plan can be a big steaming pile, but with enough paid actors and morons speaking their minds at a "public forum" where only certain people are allowed in, THEN it sounds like something we can't imagine having lived without.. or does it??? it seems to me there is a separate industry (that shouldn't rightly be called journalism) of PR spin producers who are there to convince rather than to inform. there have always been opinion pieces, and i've heard that those people have the same job.. what if only citizens had the right to free speech and corporate entities did not. and what if only citizens had the right to lobby, and corporate entities did not? wouldn't that put the kibosh on alot of the shenanigans in congress? so theycouln't pass a tax bill that specifically named companies like home depot for particular tax breaks? anyway.. media.. not journalists, they're network pr people.. and i think they're gross.
What is wrong with companies?
Post a Comment
<< Home