When I feel sick of hearing the bashing and counter-bashing that politicians do, when they think they are explaining their positions, I realize that one of the reasons I feel sick is that "accusation" seems to be the only mode of communication that these ladies and gentlemen have at their disposal! How often do we hear a platform, opinion, or position actually explained, without being put into the framework of, "The other guy is wrong because of . . . "???
I was stunned when I was actually listening for content recently, in the comments of a congressman, but, instead, all I heard was, "The other party is doing this, this, and this, and that can't work." I wonder what we'd find if we did an actual analysis of the percent of the rhetoric we hear that is mere accusation of the other guy, and what percent of the rhetoric is actual "content" explaining the speaker's point of view.
It's like a husband and wife bickering, or, worse yet, like two kids, saying, "He did it!" "No, she did it." Back and forth, and no one is really telling you what they are responsible for!
I don't like to paint all our elected officials as shallow, sloganeering, "bad guys," but I can't help but think that they don't know they are wearing the Emperor's New Clothes, as they proudly and staunchly "explain" their positions, while not really explaining anything, but just saying why "the other guy" is wrong! No wonder so many of us feel so disenfranchised, and wonder if our voting "makes a difference" or not. Most of the time, I think we are not even sure what we are voting for, because so much of what we have heard has been in terms of what the "other guy" is doing wrong, or not doing!
Then, I think about how this affects our perspective of things, including bosses, company policy, opinions of others, etc, etc, etc. Could one of the reasons the level of our civility in discourse is shrinking be because we ourselves are losing the ability to state our position, resorting more and more to a format of accusation to explain ourselves? Look at our facebook posts. How often does our "taking a stand" consist of not that, but our saying why someone else is wrong?
I think there has to be a better way, a more responsible way, to talk to each other about where we stand or don't stand on any given issue.
Any comments for discussion?
