It is a very human tendency to reduce the complexity of things down to one thing. It is not about one man: Stop distorting the picture. Take the political sphere for instance, right now we have the hoopla of the 2024 presidential race getting started. Everywhere you look you see Trump vs Biden. Do we really assume that the United States of America is run by one person. A nation of some 341 million people. No, of course not, we simplify things by naming stuff singularly under the auspices of one guy, in this instance.
However, this tendency, which is encouraged by the media coverage, reduces an important political decision down to a popularity contest.
The Distortion Of The Facts & The One Guy Thing
I am reminded of the late David Graeber’s observation that elections are not truly democratic. Rather, they are aristocratic, in that two elite candidates spend a year and many millions of dollars posing as the best of the best of us. The focus of the country and the world is on these two figures. In reality, electioneering and running nations involves large teams of people. This reduction of everything to a single elite candidate is a distortion of the facts. The media have a substantial role in this and continue to emphasise the simple over the complex to the detriment of the political sphere.
The push from producers and editors to engage a bigger audience by dumbing things down becomes self-defeating in the end.
The Trump Celebrity Obsession Is So American
Donald Trump has become a highly divisive figure over the last decade, in particular. Trump has a cult-like following. At the same time, Trump is a villain in the eyes of millions of people, not just in America but worldwide. He has morphed into a polarising force far larger than the facts of being an older rich white guy who spent a decade on celebrity TV would normally suggest. Somehow Donald J Trump has captured the heart of America. A loud mouthed New Yorker from Anglo stock – he speaks to the plain spoken in their language. He is a compulsive liar and that seems to be a very American thing too, especially as an older guy. Men, traditionally, make up answers to questions put to them, so, as to appear in control and on top of things. Trump takes this inclination to a whole other level. He makes a great character in a story.
Memory & Making Up Stories
Human beings like to see life as a bunch of stories, with many of them involving themselves, obviously. However, this is a fictitious tendency and not strictly factual. Our memories are not a completely historically accurate rendering of what has occurred, in most cases. Over time, many of us, put a positive spin on our most treasured memories. Our main focus is on ourselves and this skews things in terms of any objectivity. Any event will be perceived differently depending upon the perspective of the viewer or participant. The media’s tight focus on Biden or Trump determines our understanding of events in that light, in the same way.
Cooking The History Books With Kings & Queens
If you look back at our history, say over the last millennia, for those of us from European backgrounds, we will see a preponderous of kings and a few queens ruling the lands of our ancestors. There is, if you read the history books, a big focus on the individual lives of these royal leaders. Once again, we can observe this human inclination to reduce things down to one figure. To remove the complexity from things and see everything through the lens of this aristocratic ruler. What this does is give all of us a very distorted impression of life during these medieval times. It is not a balanced rendering of history by any means or in any manner. Our cultural life is heavily influenced by the assumptions made and promulgated about our histories. You can see that we are still repeating this today, even though, we are supposedly living within enlightened democracies. We focus on a single leader and call the government of the day the Albanese government or the Biden administration.
The media makes everything about one man, in this instance. It is an infantile inclination and lacks nuance and understanding. It promotes stupidity and ignorance.
Good Government Is Not About One Man Or Woman
In reality, good government is about consensus. Singular leadership is an outdated requirement in modern democracies. However, the Murdoch press, the Fox News’s and the Sky News Australia’s bang on about such stuff. They foster this return to authoritarianism by their simplification of far more complex issues for their viewers. Everything is bad vs good, black vs white, his fault and his fault alone. The Meta Facebook decision not to go on paying tens of millions of dollars to prop up News Corp in Australia is a sound one. All this BS about who is going to pay for journalism in Australia is a furphy. The journalism coming out of News Corp is heavily biased and not worth saving, in my view. These are commercial publishers running businesses dependent upon selling advertising, they are not providing a public service. They have their paywalls up to convince readers that it is worth paying for, anyway. The media in Australia is largely producing mindless entertainment, sensational click bait stuff, and very little good investigative journalism. It is like the bible, in that when under threat they only quote the rare good stuff within its pages and not the vile bulk of its entirety. Think about all those advertorials selling miracle weight loss products on the commercial news programs and in the pages of their newspapers.
Reams of rubbish about inconsequential crap fit only for wrapping your fish and chips. You could count the number of investigative journalists working for Rupert on one hand.
The Dangers Of The Singular Story
“Adichie believes that stories matter, but that all too often in our lives we operate from the perspective of hearing and knowing a single story — about a person, a situation, or perhaps a conflict. And that we operate from the perspective of the single story unconsciously. The risk of the single story, the one perspective, is that it can lead us to default assumptions, conclusions and decisions that may be incomplete, and may lead to misunderstanding. Operating from the context of a single story can prevent us from a more complex, nuanced view of a situation.
Adichie also makes a connection between single stories and the impact of power in our lives. In any situation, who tells the story, how and when, can impact situations greatly. The way we make sense of situations leads to narratives that may be harmful if left unexamined. Power enables some to define individuals and situations from a particular lens.”
Media Feeding The Authoritarian Trend By Their Autocratic Focus
It is not about one man: Stop distorting the picture. This endless focus on a single leader misses the point and omits the true depth and volume of the situation. It is a comic book rendition of our political sphere. The publishers want to sell newspapers and the digital media want eyeballs on their screens. It is not about telling a true and accurate account of things. It is a travesty and we all put up with it. Facts have been replaced by opinions in the media. There is less investment by media companies in investigative journalism than ever before. Style over substance has been happening for the last 30 years. Pretty pictures instead of hard news and facts. Producers wanting tight focus on a single man or woman to make them the only point of reference within stories.
We desperately need more complexity in the stories we tell and are told by the media. Stop making pre-digestible pap for modern audiences. Instead, challenge viewers to think for themselves.
Is There More Than One Key Character In Your Life Outside of Yourself?
Think about your own life for a minute. Is your job really all about the leader of your firm, business, or organisation? Is your hobby or passion in life about one person? No, I would hazard a guess that these things are much more complex and nuanced in your experience. In the same way, our experience of our lives within our communities and nations are not all about who happens to be PM or President. This focal point is part of it but not the be all and end all. Some folk might say that this is just the short hand for how we communicate about such stuff. Yes, but there are real dangers in getting lost in the singular story, especially when it comes to politics.
Lies, Fake News & Fear Mongering During Campaign Season
The lies that get told about these characters, these candidates for leadership are legendary. Fake news thrives during electioneering periods. There are no standards of truthfulness in what goes out at election time. Fear mongering is a favourite with campaign strategists. Everything becomes distorted to the detriment of truth and understanding. The experts worked out long ago that voters are more motivated to vote emotively than rationally. This is why we have the negative attack ads and why they are so effective.
“A CNBC analysis of Trump’s tweets during his presidency found that his most popular and frequent posts largely spread disinformation and distrust. Many of his most-liked tweets contained falsehoods, while the topic he posted about most frequently, “fake news,” was a weapon for undermining information.”
“The United States is at a critical juncture. More than 1 in 3 U.S. residents—and nearly 80% of Republicans—wrongly believe that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the election, and a majority say they “do not have confidence that elections reflect the will of the people.” Donald Trump’s Big Lie is working, and we have to respond. Just as we came together last year, rising up to vote safely and securely in record numbers during a global pandemic, we must now rise up to stop election disinformation efforts in future elections. This report is a game plan for success.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.
©HouseTherapy
