RECALIBRATING EXPECTATIONS



Bill Moyers was right.


This campaign is never going to go where it should go.


It will never get off the personas of the candidates and move up to a higher level of discussion that is implicit in a thorough discussion of the issues.


We’ve had twenty plus debates.


We’ve had many opportunities and they have all evanesced.


Why?


What is wrong with our ability to understand the priorities? And what makes our candidates tick?



The symptoms of our trivialized approach to picking the Leader of the Free World is evident at almost every turn.



And it is distressing at best.



Consider: Why are people more concerned with Obama’s minister that they are with where he stands on the economy?



Why are people flocking to Hillary, the candidate that claims that she relates to blue collar middle class workers? Could it be that they are buying into the negativity of an approach that tends to separate us into “whites” and “blacks.” Or is that not at all the case?



One would think that in the 21st century, we would have our tools of analysis pretty well perfected; but, instead, it seems that we are not far removed from side shows and snake medicine sales along the way.



The American people understand that they have just suffered through eight long years of a president who’s claim to greatness was that he was the kind of guy you wouldn’t mind going out and having a beer with.



This kind of thinking does not say much about our analytical abilities….or the media’s ability to separate fact from fiction.



Sorry, all you media junkies. If you haven’t discovered it as yet, they are all permutations of the Pied Piper….


You can see glaring lack of analysis all over the Internet.


It’s that don’t bother me with facts syndrome writ large.


People cultivate their blind spots, see what they want to see in their candidates and will hammer if you subject them to an objective critique.


It seems to me that a sign of an advanced people is to do precisely that.


One would expect that educated, cultivated people would be inclined to move forward into heavy discussions back and forth to see where the real truth lies. And then develop a perspective predicated on the facts and the candidates resume and the lessons he brings to what he is trying to accomplish. And then this should act as a springboard to enhance awareness and understanding. But it is not happening that way and therein lies the conundrum.



Observationally, I don’t see this happening.



Instead, what seems to happen is that people are no longer open to free and untrammeled discussion. It seems that the tendency to assume your pre-designated position and then greet any attempts at objective discussion with unalloyed hostility.



This runs so counter to what was the case when yours truly was a college student in the fifties and early sixties.



The groups I was involved with loved to show their knowledge of positions, loved to debate and win an argument based on their mastery of the subject matter; this was de rigor. .



Today, you are more likely to be the recipient of unfurled barbs predicated less on knowledge that subjective feelings.



I found this to be the case in teaching abstract thinking as part of a class in college.



Most of my students, had very little experience in arriving at reasoned solutions and then having to defend them against an opponent who adapted an opposing position.



Part of the problems I discovered was an inability to parse language; a failure in being able to differentiate exaggeration and adjectives from nouns and facts.



This immediately puts a debater at a disadvantage.



I don’t know the reason that we have lost some of this ability but it is appalling and I believe positions us to accept subjective commentary for factual discourse and to denigrate objective content.



This would seem to put us at a disadvantage in deciding the great issues of the day and makes it possible for us to settle for specious arguments instead of the real thing.



In the evolution of a culture, it seems to resonate with backward steps that reposition us at a more primitive level of development that doesn’t coincide with the level of accomplishment we should be striving for in all things, especially government.



Is there a cure for it?



Perhaps. But one does not see an awareness of the problem becoming widespread. And until that happens, it is doubtful that real progress in the building blocks of an advanced society seem within reach.



In the meantime, we struggle on with lowered expectations and a willingness to accept less than we should.



Les Aaron



The Ubiquitous Flying Blue Blog