Thanks for the feedback. People create a view of the world based on where they came from, what they have experienced, what they've been taught and many other factors (for example, religious indoctrination). This is a fact.
Regrettably the governing class in a country like the US knows this very well and has learned how to pander and manipulate the masses in their favor. This is also a fact.
Then you have the media. Most people will subscribe to one ideology and set forth to consume media that aligns with this ideology as closely as possible. This is comfortable and easy to chew on. No gag reflex involved. This is another fact.
The media know this, and feed that need. They report with overblown outrage about mostly unimportant stories. They go on and on all day long beating the same dumb story to death until they can't flatten it any more. They cater to the audience that, due to ideology, will stay with them. It's SEO, TV style. This is also a fact.
All of this leads to great levels of polarization. How else would you have huge chunks of the population self-identify with one party or another? They buy into a "tribe" and stick with it, no matter what. Tribal behavior is a most fundamental human trait. This, also, is fact.
Those in the middle of all of this, a group of which I consider myself a member, are willing to stop and think for a moment and not rattle off what others are saying without some thought and consideration. This is hard. This requires work. This requires rejecting years of unintentional indoctrination and trying to see the world for what it is. This is about the Allegory of the Cave in more ways than one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave). It requires consciously refraining from the most fundamental human impulse to be tribal and believe what has been pounded into your brain. This is hard (I repeat) and this is why most people don't do it.
At home we make it a point to learn about multiple points of view. We watch CNN and FOX. We also watch Al Jazeera and LinkTV. We are also fortunate enough to speak more than a couple of languages, so we consume international news from more than one perspective as well. It's amazing what you can learn this way.
I don't know where I am going with this except to say that there are a lot of voting groups that, just like Plato's cave, have been living and looking at the shadows in their own caves. And virtually nothing more than that. Government workers, Politicians and Unionized workers (to be brutal in my generalization) are examples of such groups. Individually none of them are bad people. As a voting and acting block they can be absolute morons, but only because all they've been willing to consider are the shadows.
I don't know how to fix it.
I don't know if it's even possible.
Regrettably the governing class in a country like the US knows this very well and has learned how to pander and manipulate the masses in their favor. This is also a fact.
Then you have the media. Most people will subscribe to one ideology and set forth to consume media that aligns with this ideology as closely as possible. This is comfortable and easy to chew on. No gag reflex involved. This is another fact.
The media know this, and feed that need. They report with overblown outrage about mostly unimportant stories. They go on and on all day long beating the same dumb story to death until they can't flatten it any more. They cater to the audience that, due to ideology, will stay with them. It's SEO, TV style. This is also a fact.
All of this leads to great levels of polarization. How else would you have huge chunks of the population self-identify with one party or another? They buy into a "tribe" and stick with it, no matter what. Tribal behavior is a most fundamental human trait. This, also, is fact.
Those in the middle of all of this, a group of which I consider myself a member, are willing to stop and think for a moment and not rattle off what others are saying without some thought and consideration. This is hard. This requires work. This requires rejecting years of unintentional indoctrination and trying to see the world for what it is. This is about the Allegory of the Cave in more ways than one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave). It requires consciously refraining from the most fundamental human impulse to be tribal and believe what has been pounded into your brain. This is hard (I repeat) and this is why most people don't do it.
At home we make it a point to learn about multiple points of view. We watch CNN and FOX. We also watch Al Jazeera and LinkTV. We are also fortunate enough to speak more than a couple of languages, so we consume international news from more than one perspective as well. It's amazing what you can learn this way.
I don't know where I am going with this except to say that there are a lot of voting groups that, just like Plato's cave, have been living and looking at the shadows in their own caves. And virtually nothing more than that. Government workers, Politicians and Unionized workers (to be brutal in my generalization) are examples of such groups. Individually none of them are bad people. As a voting and acting block they can be absolute morons, but only because all they've been willing to consider are the shadows.
I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if it's even possible.