NOTEBOOK: Simplistic storytelling on TV news pushing nation to war

By David McElroy · February 23, 2012

Cleaning out the notebook again…

Cable news can rot your brain and make you crazy. A place where I’ve been going a lot recently almost always has a TV on cable news. After being subjected to this garbage for awhile, I sort of understand why so many people favor going to war — or at least “intervening” — in countries with oppressive dictators. The simplistic, emotional and context-free reports from television leave the impression that the obvious right thing to do is to intervene.

It seems that most people have seen so many simplistic television shows and movies — and TV news mirrors that simplicity — that they believe fixing complex problems is simple and easy. It’s maddening, because the solutions aren’t as easy as implied by the narratives laid out on news channels.

Speaking of wars, I’m worry about what’s going on in Iran. I’m not making a prediction about what’s going to happen there, because there are too many possible scenarios. But I can see the very real possibility of it leading to a large war that most people don’t want — all because the small players there are aligned with bigger powers outside the region.

If Israel attacks Iran, there’s a possibility that Russia could try to intervene to defend Iran. The Russians have already been warning Israel not to attack. If Russia gets involved — which might not even happen, of course — there’s going to be a lot of internal pressure here for the United States to get involved on the other side. Wasn’t there some big war nearly a hundred years ago that was triggered by an assassination simply because big powers were aligned with the players in a smaller-scale conflict? The Iran-Israel conflict isn’t exactly the same, but it’s similar enough to bring World War I to mind for me.

Did you watch Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate? I didn’t. Other than catching a few specific segments on YouTube, I haven’t seen a single debate during this campaign cycle. It keeps me saner not to get frustrated with the idiocy that comes with these things. I like to pretend they don’t exist. Now if I could just pretend that the federal government didn’t exist, that would be a good next step.

Those who oppose manufacturing in China are today’s Luddites. That hit me the other night while I was listening to an economics podcast. The Luddites were those in England in the 19th century who didn’t want the mechanization of the textile industry and went so far as to destroy equipment to try to “save jobs.” Those who are trying to stop international trade just don’t understand economics and don’t understand that the distributed manufacturing process that we see today is good for everybody involved.

On the same subject, those who complain about Chinese manufacturing because they say it’s terrible for the workers need to watch the ABC News report from this week about what it’s like in the Foxconn factory that makes Apple equipment. People are lined up competing for those jobs, because they’re far better jobs than they can get back in their small villages. Take a look at the conditions in the villages they’re escaping from. Would they like easier work and higher pay. Of course. (Wouldn’t we all?) The work they’re doing is making their lives better. It’s making their families’ lives better. And it’s providing those in the West with products for lower prices than we’d otherwise pay. It’s a win for everyone.

If you’re interested in how American companies can successfully compete against Chinese manufacturing, there’s a fascinating discussion of that on this week’s EconTalk podcast. Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money talks about his recent reporting about what makes some U.S. manufacturers successful. I learned a lot from the interview, and I highly recommend it.

Did you happen to notice that the National Enquirer has what it claims is a picture of Whitney Houston in her casket? That sparked a bit of discussion on my Facebook page Wednesday about the propriety of it. At least one person saw it as disrespectful, but someone else objected to the “inherent gnosticism” of being upset about such displays.

I neither object to it nor promote it. I just find it funny. I’m amused that there’s this weird fascination with celebrities that creates a market for it and I’m amused that the tabloids cater to that in ways that make it seem like important news. All around, it’s just self-satirizing.

One of our regulars around here got some very good news on Wednesday. He’s recently returned to full-time ministry and got official word from his denomination that he’s been reinstated to the roster of active, full-time ordained ministers. This is great news for him and for the church he’s recently started serving. We’re proud of you, JB. Keep up the good work.

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I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

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