About Blind Faith and Conspiracy Theories

Here’s an interesting take, from a global perspective, on conspiracy theories.

Please pardon the profanity, but I believe the most interesting statement in this article is that “there’s a huge temptation among people to believe there is a master plan, because otherwise the suggestion is we’re interdependent and the world is chaotic — and that’s a mindfuck.”

In America, there are a very large number of fundamentalist Christians—people who believe that the Bible should be taken literally and that a savage (but somehow, at the same time loving) God personally orchestrates every little thing that happens on earth—from who lives or dies in the aftermath of an earthquake to who wins the Super Bowl. (No one’s ever satisfactorily explained to me how supporters of two teams can both deluge the heavens with their prayers, but one side or the other always loses.)

Surely it’s very comforting to think that nothing happens by accident and that everything we ever need to know can be found between the pages of a single book. But it’s also irresponsible. That kind of magical thinking separates reason from belief and makes people prone to believe pretty much anything. (In fact, it’s a tenet of many fundamentalist sects that God deliberately lays traps for reasonable people; a Ph.D. candidate in paleontology, of all things, once told me that God planted dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith.)

Of course it’s easier to believe—especially if you hang out with a group of like-minded individuals—than to think. Thinking is hard work. But there’s a lot of truth in the old adage, “God helps those who help themselves.” If you believe that everything happens for a reason, then we have brains for a reason. I submit that there is no God in his (or her) heaven playing a cruel game of cat-and-mouse in which reality is never what it seems and truth is encoded in an enigmatic and self-contradictory tome to which only a privileged elect have the key. (And oh, how pleasurable it must be to see oneself as one of the elect.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disparaging either religion or Christianity—just fundamentalism, which essentially means blind adherence to a pre-packaged doctrine or set of beliefs. Nor do I think that everyone who attends church is prone to slavish, mindless obedience or blind faith. But the fact that religious beliefs are so often disconnected from reason and reality is one good reason to be adamant about ensuring the separation of church and state.

The intrusion of fundamentalism into the national discourse has caused a great deal of mischief, especially in recent years. The notion that “everyone’s entitled to their beliefs”—right or wrong, rational or just plain loony—is dangerous in a nation in which the beliefs and attitudes of the people continually influence and shape the government. I’m not at all sure that people are “entitled” to be wrong—especially when that wrongness is not the result of a mistake but rather of a stubborn, emotional adherence to beliefs that contradict reality on the basis of reasonable evidence. (Of course I'm speaking here about moral, not legal, entitlement.)

It takes open-mindedness to accept the fact that we are—increasingly—interdependent, both nationally and globally. It takes courage to concede that the world, if not exactly chaotic, is full of situations in which we may have to suspend judgment and struggle long and hard to find the truth.

Those are two things America could use more of—open-mindedness and the courage to tolerate uncertainty.

Fox News and the "Liberal Media"

A reader recently asked, “Do you watch Fox News?” The answer: “Not if I can help it.” In fact, I’ve launched a one-woman campaign in my local area to get businesses that stream Fox News on their wall-mounted televisions to change the channel. I prefer not to subject myself to an atmosphere polluted by a steady stream of negativism, hostile rhetoric, aggressive body language, and extremist right-wing propaganda.

That said, I know that the negative emotionalism typical of Fox broadcasting appeals to many. In fact, I think it may even be addictive. Fox listeners often also find their way to right-wing, anti-establishment rants on the radio, listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Lou Dobbs. There’s nothing like a steady dose of outrage to get the adrenalin flowing, and it’s a fact that some people become addicted to the rush.

Extreme right-wing rhetoric has found legitimacy in this country, largely because of Fox News and its cousin-in-print, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Together with hate-mongers on the radio, they’ve coined the phrase “liberal media” and made it stick to pretty much all media outlets that are in the least bit objective or balanced in their reporting of current events, lumping mainstream and left-wing sources together in an “us-against-them” world view.

Where do I get my news? From a wide variety of so-called “liberal media” sources—which is to say, anywhere but Fox News and the WSJ. (I do read articles from the WSJ when someone sends me a link; however, I pass if the author happens to be someone whom I consider to be completely unqualified on the subject or lacking in intellectual integrity.)

One reader has asked repeatedly where I get my information, so for the sake of full disclosure, what follows is a fairly comprehensive list—for now, anyway. (Those who don’t care may wish to skip the following paragraph.)

I like to begin my evening with a nice roundup of the day’s events on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. His “Making a Difference” segment, focusing on heroic actions by ordinary people, is always positive and up-lifting. For analysis of partisan politics, I often tune in to Rachel Maddow, who has a knack for explaining complex issues in plain, simple language. For in-depth analysis and news about science, technology, and the world, I listen to NPR. (I always make a point to be driving around at noon on Fridays, when “Science Friday” is on.) I like CNN’s in-depth reporting of big events, like the earthquake in Haiti. I’m rather obsessive about reading news headlines and articles on my mobile phone, regularly surfing sites like politico.com, Yahoo! News, Media Matters, The Week, and—yes—Fox (whose mobile news service tends toward some kooky human interest stories). I subscribe to a number of online newsletters from various organizations, including The Progress Report, salon.com, and The Southern Poverty Law Center. I get RS feeds from a variety of columnists (left, right, and center), including Thomas L. Friedman, Kathleen Parker, and Mike Madden. I occasionally check out the web sites for members of Congress who happen to catch my attention. For an outsider’s perspective on American culture and politics, I often read news from France and listen to the BBC. When I want background for something I’m writing, I may consult books or look for in-depth articles in magazines like The Atlantic or The New Yorker.

As for knowing what’s going in the alternative universe of Fox News, I sometimes log on to News Hounds (“We watch Fox so you don’t have to”) and catch unavoidable glimpses of the streamers when the channel is on in public places. Apart from that, I have a few right-wing friends who can usually be depended on to let me know how the spin doctors in the conservative media are interpreting national events.

I see and hear enough hard-core conservative talking points to understand how habitual consumers of extreme right-wing messaging might suffer from cognitive dissonance when exposed to mainstream media. It’d be enough to make anyone uncomfortable—and people who are uncomfortable tend to get angry. Perhaps the only way habitual Fox News watchers could really understand how the rest of us view the world would be to go cold turkey for a few weeks and watch and read exclusively news that hasn’t been—as the British like to put it—“sexed up” to please the conservative palate.

From a Totally Partisan Source, But . . .

. . . hey,these are the facts. And they are undisputed.

The American Voter, Part II of III: The American Character

I’ve spent some time in both New York and Seattle. Given that there’s a culture common to big cities the world over, these two couldn’t be more different.

New Yorkers tend to be more formal: they dress up to go to dinner. In Seattle, the casual look is de rigueur—it’s pretty hard to be under-dressed in Seattle without being totally nude. People in New York seem to be more out-spoken and less politically correct than Seattleites. People in Seattle are less likely than New Yorkers to be “in your face” if they disagree with you, but if you stand around looking lost on a New York street, people will fall all over themselves trying to give you directions.

Contrast the citizens of either place with the “typical” Mid-Western farmer, Southern revivalist, or Arizona retiree, and you have an idea of the scope of differences among people across this great land.

So what-all makes an American an American? What are some of the characteristics typical of those born or raised in the good ol’ US of A?

For about fifteen years, I had a unique opportunity to explore that question in discussions with a group of people who had the perspective of having come to America from other places. We met weekly, usually at the home of a Belgian couple—native French speakers who were kind enough to mentor the rest of us in the nuances of that lovely language. Membership in the group changed over the years but included, at one time or another, folks from Great Britain, India, Brazil, France, and Hong Kong. As a born-in-America citizen and native English speaker, I was usually in the minority.

Topics of conversation ranged from history and culture to science and etymology, but we often discussed current events. On my part, these conversations were a chance to understand how smart, well-traveled people with a fondness for the USA tend to see us. Over time, it became clear to me that in nations, as in families, the influence of history goes back a long, long way.

The first white people in America fled religious persecution. They came to a land with many dangers, where only the toughest, hardest-working, and most adaptable could survive. As they came into contact with the native peoples, whose language and customs were incomprehensible to them, conflicts arose. Armed with a powerful cultural and religious sense of superiority and entitlement, the newcomers eventually vanquished the natives. Incentives arose to move westward across the vast continent, and the hardiest or most desperate set out again and again for the great unknown. We, their children and cultural heirs, retain some of the traits evident in those early settlers.

So here are some characteristics of Americans—at any rate, of the dominant culture of white, mainstream Americans—that seem to derive partly from the nation’s origins. Often in the extreme compared to other Westernized nations, Americans tend to be

• Hard working


• Stubborn


• Uncompromising


• Religious


• Prudish


• Stalwart and determined


• Anti-intellectual


• Anti-government


• Eager to help their neighbors


• Innovative


• Gullible


• Inclined to feel persecuted

Only America could have gone from utter ruin at Pearl Harbor in 1941 to world military dominance five years later. Only in America could a large number of educated people still believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago. Only America could proudly elect its leaders one day and then spend the next two to four years accusing them of dastardly secret conspiracies. Only Americans could throw up a barn for a neighbor in a long day’s work but vociferously defend horrific human rights abuses like slavery, gay-bashing, and capital punishment. (Only Americans, for example, could reconcile the notion of free speech with a call to execute protesters for burning a flag.) Only America could keep spawning organizations like the John Birch Society, neo-fascist militias, and the NRA. (People: Nobody—but nobody—is secretly plotting to take your guns away!)

In conversation, Americans tend to be dogmatic and emotional and to take simple disagreement as a personal affront. Americans change their minds less than other people of similar educational background (according to my friends from abroad, anyway), and when they have to acknowledge they may have been wrong, they tend to get angry about it. Having begun as a nation of fighters, Americans still find it hard to conceive of a win-win (as opposed to a win-lose) situation.

However, solving big problems requires the ability to think rationally, speak honestly, tolerate disagreement, and be willing to compromise—in other words, to seek a “win-win” situation. Only in America would large segments of the population condone the actions of leaders who say no, no, no to the party in power, blocking progress on virtually every issue just to try to make the opposition look bad.

I love my country. If I had to get stuck along the highway or be left without a home, I’d rather it be here than anywhere else. But when it comes to engaging in a rational discussion about religion, philosophy, politics, or a host of other topics, I’d rather be anywhere else.

The trouble is, we have to discuss these things. American families can’t wait and the world can’t wait for solutions to the many problems that beset us. As Americans, we need to tell the people who represent us to rise above the worst attributes in the American character and exercise the best to solve problems and get things done.

The Media Loves a Good Fight

Having watched yesterday’s exchange of ideas between President Obama and the House Republican caucus, I find some of today’s headlines amusing:

• “Obama, GOP Trade Barbs at Meeting”


• “President Obama Rumbles with House GOP”


• “President Obama Slams Republican Obstructionists at GOP Issues Retreat”


• “Obama Gets Grilled at GOP Meeting”

“Barbs,” “rumbles,” “slams,” “grilled.” It seems the media has a rich vocabulary for expressing hostility, rage, and open warfare, and they’re always eager to use it. After all, the media can’t help being about entertainment, and everyone knows that tension and suspense are necessary to make a good story.

But as people begin to digest the reality of what happened yesterday—an open, respectful, grown-up, adult-adult exchange of ideas and perceptions between the executive and legislative branches of government—the headlines are changing:

• “Obama Speaks at House Republican Retreat”


• “Obama, House Republicans Debate Their Divisions”


• “Obama Visits GOP Retreat”

“Speaks,” “debate,” “visits.” Speaking with one another, debating issues, visiting back and forth. Aw—now isn’t that nice?

Yep, the media loves a good fight—and none more than Fox News. Its main products, after all, are rage and righteous indignation. If all this warm fuzzy stuff catches on in Washington, Fox may be out of business one of these days.

And wouldn’t that be nice?

The American Voter, Part I: Group Dynamics

As any classroom teacher can tell you, every group of people quickly develops attitudes and a personality all its own. Virtually the minute a crowd comes together (a “crowd” being three or more people), leaders and shared values emerge. People often change as they move through their lives from one group to another, almost instantly taking up and shedding characteristics that naturally emerge in different situations. If someone stumbles and falls, one group will laugh while another will rush to help. What one individual might do or say when alone may be very different than what the same person might do or say in the context of one group or another.

I’ve often been in parent-teacher conferences in which parents and teachers seem to be talking about entirely different kids. A kid who’s defiant and obnoxious at home may be unfailingly respectful at school—or vice versa. A kid who’s inattentive in one class may be completely focused in another. In working with adolescents, I’ve often seen them magically transform from silly, fun-loving children at school to serious, mature adults at work in the community.

As the only child of a single, working mother, I was a community of one. I became fascinated by my friends’ families and how they worked. I was intrigued by how a person could act one way at school, another way at home, and yet another way when hanging out with friends.

Years later, as a teacher, I developed an approach to classroom management that often involved seating people in different parts of the room to influence their behavior. You’d be amazed at how differently, for example, a person may look at the world from the back of the room as opposed to the front. In working with students who had attention problems, I seated them with those who were paying attention—a technique I called “castling” and learned to use to good effect. Even working with adults in college classes, I tended to use group dynamics as a tool for influencing the behavior of my students.

For most of my career, I’ve been both a teacher and counselor, usually working full time at one job and part time at the other. As a counselor, I found myself specializing in a systems approach to family therapy: when working with a family, I don’t focus on who’s at fault. I don’t buy into a family’s beliefs about who’s the villain, who’s the victim, and who’s the rescuer in a family’s game of choice. Rather, I focus on what’s working and what’s not working. From that standpoint, family issues become problems to solve together rather than opportunities to punish and blame one another. Put another way, I encourage families to focus on “win-win” rather than “win-lose” strategies (which inevitably devolve into “lose-lose” situations).

In recent years—especially in the last decade—new imaging techniques have allowed scientists to actually see the workings of the human brain. We now know through scientific studies, not just anecdotal evidence, that people’s “minds” literally change from one context to another. The “emotional brain” (primarily the limbic system located deep in the middle) is entirely different from the “rational brain” (primarily the frontal cortex, which is the last part of the brain to fully develop). People can “think” with either part of the brain—the emotional part or the rational part—but generally not both at the same time.

It takes time for new knowledge to seep out to the general public. Most people don’t know much about how their computers or cell phones work. We leave it to the experts to gather detailed information about complex subjects; in a society with free and open communication, some of that knowledge eventually becomes generally known and part of the cultural heritage.

In general, American voters don’t know much about the logistics of human behavior or how their brains work. I don’t blame them for that. Most know a lot about other stuff. When I have a chance to get into deep conversations with people, I’m often stunned at how much they know—often on arcane subjects—regardless of their background or education. (On one memorable occasion, for example, a young rancher brought a bovine eyeball to school to illustrate how cows see differently than people do—a topic that had never previously come to my attention!) I don’t expect everyone to know or care a great deal about sociology or the workings of the human mind.

But I’ll tell you who does know about these things: advertisers and political strategists. They know countless ways to get people to “think” with the emotional rather than the rational parts of their brain. (How else would you get practical people to pay three times more for a name-brand product than for an identical generic product sitting right there on the same shelf?) They know that negative emotions, such as fear and anger, are not only powerful motivators of human behavior but also highly contagious. They know how to use attitude, innuendo, and fragmentary information (or mis-information) to shape public opinion and behavior. Those who stand to profit from shifting the public mood one way or another may not always care much about the fine distinctions between persuasion and propaganda.

In America, as we found out in the election of 2000, even a single vote can be hugely important. As America goes, so goes the world. Do we focus on drilling for oil or investing in renewable energy? Do we send our troops to fight and die in Iraq, in Afghanistan, or neither? What attitudes do we adopt toward our allies and our enemies? These things are of immeasurable importance. I submit that an American citizen has more responsibility in casting his or her vote than does the citizen of any other nation in the world.

I have profound respect for the individual. I’m suspicious and skeptical of powerful and rich organizations with virtually unlimited resources for influencing public opinion. Never in human history have there been so many of those organizations with so much power to shape the world—to virtually determine the future of the planet and the human race. The odds have never been higher for being able to discern the difference between truth and propaganda.

Knowledge is power. Large corporations and other special interest groups have tremendous resources for buying and wielding knowledge about human behavior—resources no small group or individual can begin to match. That’s one reason why we need government to monitor how and to what ends those groups employ their resources. That’s why it’s a matter of so much urgency that the Supreme Court has given powerful special interest groups of every kind carte blanche to use their resources to manipulate the sentiments of the American people.

I don’t blame people for not knowing when they’re being manipulated. But now more than ever, I think it’s important for Americans to develop a healthy skepticism about what they see or hear in the media—to ask whether their fear or their anger has a basis in reality or is the result of someone trying to stimulate that reaction to further their own ends.

Now more than ever, and here in America more than anywhere, it’s critical that we begin to think with the part of our brains designed for problem solving. More and more, reason rather than emotion should be the basis of the public discourse.

Haiti's Still Hurting

By texting "Haiti" to 90999, we raised over $21 million for Haitian relief as of last week. Let's do it one more time.

For those of you so inclined, here's a poem in which Haitian-American writer Patrick Sylvain expresses his grief.