The Political Consequences of Suspending Disbelief

Those who have studied media literacy know the concept of “the suspension of disbelief.”

Here’s how it works. When we read fiction, watch films and most TV drama, we shut down our disbelief and critical abilities. We permit ourselves to accept fiction as being true. How can we enjoy fiction if we are constantly telling ourselves it’s not “true”?

And so we “accept” lies of a sort. At its best, fiction becomes “art” and reveals larger truths. At its worst, and all too often, it is a lie appealing to our baser instincts. If we have suspended our disbelief, we often can’t, or won’t, appreciate the difference.

The suspension of disbelief comes at the cost of making us vulnerable. We find it difficult and even impossible to switch back to critical thinking after hours of having shut it down.

That’s why advertising, with all its visual and associative manipulation, is so effective. We actually believe if we buy this car or that soap, we will be better, just like the “beautiful people” in the ads. We carry these fictions into the market place and put our money on them.

Enter Donald Trump (and most other candidates for that matter). They hit us with their advertising when we are most vulnerable to its distortions (grainy footage, patriotic symbols, reassuring voices, creepy music etc.).

Trump does his distorting largely without advertising because he is, at root, a oddly and crudely engaging performer. Those who are most unquestionably believing of him become “true believers.” They idolize him, accepting uncritically whatever he says – even when he contradicts himself, even when he offends and demeans “others.”

In so many ways, Trump is no more harsh, cruel or obscene than much of popular media today. Note that he speaks in the truncated, venom-laced language of the internet.

In short, Trump’s behavior is made to order for our media culture. Those who have become immersed in it (and many watch TV or are glued to the internet for hours on end) feel right at home with a bullying, bigoted, thoughtless brute. (Rush Limbaugh also comes to mind....)

Trump, like much of media, plays upon and amplifies the dark, fearful, hateful, violent side of life. (There’s even a name for the phenomenon: “The Mean World Syndrome.” (vis. the late George Gerbner.)

if you can’t, or won’t, return to a questioning state of disbelief (which, be warned, requires work), you find yourself accepting distorted, outrageous and even immoral solutions.

Exploring the real causes of problems facing us just doesn’t lend itself to 30-second TV spots and 140-word tweets. Besides, who wants to know that we ourselves are part of the problem and will have to change?

Why else would global warming be seemingly unworthy of public discourse in this campaign?

Instead, sound bite “solutions” (torture, walls, intolerance) threaten to make  "real world" life for all of us and our progeny worse…much, much worse.

Pausing in a culture of conflict

In President Obama's memorial address yesterday in Tucson, the most memorable and telling line for me was:

"At a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

Why did the President appeal for a mere "pause"? Is that the best we can do?

Why not make our healing permanent and speak and listen with civility, even humility, so that we are truly "one nation indivisible."

Our nasty little secret, and the President knows it, is that we are an adversarial society that thrives on a culture of conflict.

Our economy and political system are rooted in competition built on our baser instincts and emotional appeals. Our legal system is all about winning. Justice is often a lucky happenstance. We place far more value on individuals and their rights (often at the expense of others) than on community and harmony. Our media and our cultural stories describe and explore conflict in detail, often bloody detail. So few of our stories are about cooperation and compassion (though the President poignantly amplified a few in his speech.)

One commentator, the late George Gerbner, described mass media as creating a "Mean World Syndrome." He pointed out that a society steeped in a brutally harsh fiction has a way of transforming that fiction into fact.

The media's millionaire political hate-mongers would be paupers if they suddenly became "healers" instead of slash-and-burn rhetorical "wounders." We are not conditioned to watch a world at peace.

In his media moment yesterday, the President played his role as healer and truth-teller. Sadly, it was only a pause — flicker of light in our darkness.

We need a strong and steady beacon. Where will it come from? What will it be?

Reality Check at Wilson High

A recent student-administered study at our local Wilson High School revealed that teens think their student peers are using more drugs and alcohol than they actually are.

The organization Positive Action Concerning Teens (PACT) is using the study’s results to give teens a reality check and to counter peer pressure.

The results show that Wilson students believe that more than nine out of 10 of their peers consume or have consumed alcohol. The actual number is six out of 10. The results also show that those who do drink, do so far less than is believed.

The study also revealed similar misperceptions about marijuana use.

The June issue of the Southwest Community Connection describes the results in a front page story.

One study's conclusion is that teen social norms — and sense of reality — are askew as it relates to drugs and alcohol. What kids THINK is happening, isn’t.

One thing is missing from the story — and presumably the Wilson study: The answer to the question “Why?”

Why the disconnect between perception and reality?

The question begs for an answer.

Here’s one: The media. How is teen behavior portrayed in the media, which consume roughly eight hours of the average teen’s day?

More exactly, how are teens themselves portrayed in the media? Screens are distorting mirrors. What do teens see when they become immersed in a screen world.

The late George Gerbner conducted a classic study of what heavy TV watchers thought the crime rate was and compared that to what “light” consumers of TV thought the rate was. He called the result “The Mean World Syndrome.” Heavy consumers of TV fare thought the world was a much more dangerous place than it in fact is. Those who used less TV, had a better sense of the crime rate.

I imagine that the same is true with perceptions of drug and alcohol use among teens.

One final point: Why didn’t the study include tobacco “drug” usage. Nicotine is as dangerous, or more so, than marijuana and alcohol.

Clearly peer attitudes and perceptions regarding tobacco usage are important at Wilson.

My own perceptions of teen tobacco use are likely distorted as well. I tend to not pay attention when I see teens NOT smoking, but when I do see teen smokers, I find that my reaction varies from anger to depression. It makes a distinct and influencing impression.

There’s a larger point to be made too. Just how well do our perceptions ABOUT ANYTHING, coincide with reality. And if there’s a disconnect, how do we explain it?

BIG topic alert.

Without getting into a philosophical discussion about the nature of “reality” and “knowledge,” the question is worth pursuing — if only to ward off delusion, distrust, paranoia and — peer pressure, whether among teens or adults.

No fear; No TV

Oregonian columnist Renee Mitchell today bemoaned the reported decline of civility in the city. People no longer greet each other, or wave or learn each other’s names, she opined.

“We’re afraid to venture out at night because we don’t know who’s out there, lurking in the darkness. Or what they’re capable of,” she wrote.

She cited statistics showing that more and more people are feeling unsafe beyond the confines of their houses. The nights are particularly unnerving.

Her solution was to encourage neighbors to attend National Night Out events on August 5. Dozens of the neighborhood get-togethers are planned around the city.

That’s well and good, but what about the rest of the year? And what about that lingering feeling that to be alone on our streets at night is taking your life into your hands.

I wrote Renee to suggest that people should consider simply shutting off their TVs — in particular the lurid crime reporting foisted on a gullible, but sensation-seeking public. FOX News on KPTV, and its ratings-hungry mimics, thrive on broadcasting mayhem. It’s cheap, reality-twisting reporting.

Much of the rest of TV does the same, making violence and its lurid appeal its stock-in trade. I suggested to Renee that her own newspaper, as it struggles to maintain readership, seems to be printing more crime news and giving it more prominence.

Several years ago media researcher George Gerbner discovered that heavy viewers of TV had an inflated sense of how much crime is in their communities. They had come to accept the crime-infested media portrayals over the reality of the world outside their doors. In short, TV was frightening them into home-bound isolation. He called the phenomenon “The Mean World Syndrome.”

So if you want to feel safer and better about your neighborhood, by all means go to the National Night Out in your neighborhood. But if you want to feel better permanently about the world around you, TURN OF THE TV NEWS. Better yet, call the stations to complain.

P.S. On a related note, attendance at our inter-generational Thursday Game Board Nights at the bottom of our hill is picking up. And, yes, we are learning each other’s names and getting to know, trust, and like each other.