Hemispheres

The growing polarization did not happen in a vacuum or in the span of a few years.  Political and social tactics have been super-charged into a perfect storm the combined the reach provided by social media and 24-hour “news” organizations with the ruling on Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited money to contribute to any political movement without sourcing the origin of the funds, and can be supportive of any political candidate’s position of any issue.  The result is unlimited advertising spending in the Billions and unlimited reach for any emotionally driven narrative to anyone, for any reason, and without any adherence for origins of support, journalistic standards, or data.  It’s coming at us from all sides whether it be Fox News and MSNBC in the United States, Al Jazeera, Sky News in Australia, or the TASS News agency in Russia.  It’s coming at us in all forms whether it be from fake accounts on social media based in any country, often state-sponsored, or from political extremists in our neighbors’ basements.  And, again, it’s working.  We are being bombarded with emotion.  Moved with indignance.  Told what to think.  Told what to say.  Told how to vote.  But mostly, told how to feel.  

What we are NOT being told is how to think critically.  We aren’t being encouraged to understand or to listen to opposing views.  The absence of which is setting the modern world on a collision course to the end of thinking and the end of civility.  The doomsday clock is near midnight and unless the entire world seeks to understand at a basic level those ideas that oppose our own, modern society and the future is in dire straits.