On Monday, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy (yes, that’s is how he spells his last name) told ABC News that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s despot, lives in “an informational bubble.”
Pres. Zelenskyy said:
What needs to be done is for President Putin to stop talking, start the dialogue, instead of living in the informational bubble without oxygen. I think that’s where he is. He is in this bubble. He’s getting this information and you don’t know how realistic that information is that he’s getting.
For more on that (for the rest of us, who aren’t despots):
It’s not just Putin whose news intake is carefully curated. We all can be guilty of only going to voices that tell us we are right. So what do you do to make sure you’re exposing yourself to opposing viewpoints? I read conservative gasbags. I draw the line at watching Fox News.
I (like most, not all but most black Americans) learned from an early age to navigate through truths that are fed to the masses through tv and the truths lived in real time in our world. Two worlds in which to know and culturalize.
The idea of being swayed by talking heads while living in a different reality is counterintuitive to our very survival.
I read you and Heather Cox Richardson for a digest of daily events. I cannot stomach reading conservative gasbags except in very small doses on Twitter.
A completely unbiased, even-handed and balanced news source, washed through the fevered dreams of a knee-jerk, hairy-legged, liberal feminist. Good for you.
Susan, if the last five years hadn't happened I wouldn't understand the positions of two friends at work - one born in Azerbaijan whose family is now in Moscow, the other born in Slovenia with family in Poland and Ukraine - whose love for one another as the only Slavic ex-pats in an Italian resort had them both in tears at lunch yesterday trying to explain their opposing positions. It took having seen close friends divided by the information they'd gotten from FOX vs MSNBC (both started by Nixon crony Roger Ailes, interestingly enough) and unable to understand the other's blindness regarding [insert political candidate here] because everything they'd been told was exactly opposite their friend's knowledge base.
This was what Orwell warned of in '1984' with DoubleSpeak and the rest of his dystopic novel: when words mean the opposite of their original definition and parties divide people based on half-truths and outright lies, then Muscovites and Ukrainians cannot possibly understand one another. Which is why after a year and a half in the wilderness (away from news, social media and virtually all current events) in the heart of the last Administration from late 2016 to early 2018, I returned to the world watching as much as I could stomach, though the extremes like RT & OANN to the right and Jacobin or the Palmer Report to the left often losing me for their obvious agitprop.
I don't find much on the fringes to be reliable and try my best to assiduously cite centrist sources, but without seeing how Fox frames all things Biden or MSNBC frames all things Trump I couldn't possibly understand where my fellow Americans were coming from; the same is true of Anastasia & Fatima. So while we who watch American media are largely in agreement on Putin and Zelenskyy, a woman whose family is hostage to Russian news sources and has to choose between her parents and her friends (or Russian vs American media) finds herself in the same dilemma as the children of ardent Trump supporters, which helps me understand the tens of millions of Americans who voted him into office after hearing him talk about women, taxes and business with such flagrant contempt for basic decency, and then did so again four years later after he'd caused the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen with his response to SARS-CoV-2.
And now I can almost understand all the obedient Germans eighty-three years ago as Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded Poland from the East, and Stalin's obedient Russians who did the same from the West. Almost...
For 15 years I put 25.000-30,000 miles a year on the car, driving all over the state for work. I made a point of listening to Limbaugh and other right wing commentators (the thoughtful and thoughtless) a few minutes a day. I was a self-enforced, captive audience so that made it easier but when I changed jobs that became harder to do. At the time, around 2005, it seemed like reading some George Will, Kathleen Parker, Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, etc. with a sprinkling of Limbaugh was enough to say I made a legitimate effort at balanced input. Now, obviously with the exception of Limbaugh, they can seem so reasonable at times. It’s not me that’s changed, believe me. So where’s the balance come from, Jordan Klepper videos?
Now it seems like taking a balanced look requires something akin to one of those 50s/60s mental asylum movies where the psychiatrist is staring into a padded room through a one way mirror while the patient decompensates.
I was just listening to a podcast where the guest is a paranormal researcher whose premises are non-standard, but who is also highly intelligent not only about that pursuit but about Things Generally. So refreshing.
I started listening to NPR during the last presidential administration, and didn't stop. They cover quite a few perspectives though only extremely seldom anything at an ideological extreme on any side.
I am seldom in waiting rooms any longer, and waiting room TVs now seem not to be so wildly dominated by Fox News, but it used to be inescapable.
For reasons I don't understand, I get promotional emails from several rightie lists, and I read them. Plus fundraising emails and texts.
I have read a ridiculous number of books by Trump administration figures-- I think I'll be drawing the line at William Barr-- and that's how I learned that US GOP folks think they're universally acknowledged as the moral and mental health standards for the universe.
Purity cultures of all sort have a lot to answer for. As usual.
Amen and amen. I read Townhall.com (conservative columnists) which gets my heart up and allows me to skip exercise for the day. I have a limited tolerance for Fox, as well, so nope. Life's too short. And I am on every email subscription list save for Storm Front's (I don't even know if they have an email subscription list) so I can keep up with the latest nonsense.
Oh, and about twenty years ago, hearing about Rush Limbaugh, I listened to a bunch. Now, that was a nasty experience. It wasn't just the stinky-bad logic, which is common enough all round, including in household disputes. It was the dogmatic repetition-with-snotty-affect.
And yet it was useful/sad to get some sense of what so many people were finding so attractive.
I'm thinking that perhaps your starting position is, like mine, one of seldom agreeing entirely with anyone, so not automatically having fainting fits over encountering material you disagree with.
It's the snotty-affect that I find hard to get past, though once they start on their hamster-wheel of repeated talking points I walk away, hoping that my post with links will lead them to Dr. Cox Richardson, you, NPR, and other reasonable and fact-based positions.
My goal is to find news and opinions that are rooted in facts, or at least attempt to get at the truth. It's discouraging when an opposing view is based on false information and then there is insistence it be given equal weight as if we are arguing over the best pasta dish. Some viewpoints just rate high on truthiness and low on honesty & truth.
After a few conversations with some people in my life, I rapidly find out what messages conservatives are pushing. e.g. People like George Soros and Hunter Biden come up a lot.
I get so frustrated. I did tune into Fox News midday a few days ago. The coverage wasn't awful. However, when I have put on Hannity or Carlson in the past, I last about a minute or two before I can't take it anymore. It's just so hateful and awful, and low on truth.
I (like most, not all but most black Americans) learned from an early age to navigate through truths that are fed to the masses through tv and the truths lived in real time in our world. Two worlds in which to know and culturalize.
The idea of being swayed by talking heads while living in a different reality is counterintuitive to our very survival.
Put less dramatically;
I live in Fox News I don’t need to watch it.
This is going to give me something to think about for a long while. Thank you.
Deacon Art, that’s the most profound thing I’ve read in a while.
I smell a newspaper essay. Do you?
Yes.
Indeed
I read you and Heather Cox Richardson for a digest of daily events. I cannot stomach reading conservative gasbags except in very small doses on Twitter.
That I appear in the same sentence with HCR makes me smile. She's incredible.
I get all my information from Super-Probably Relevant Content.
A completely unbiased, even-handed and balanced news source, washed through the fevered dreams of a knee-jerk, hairy-legged, liberal feminist. Good for you.
Susan, if the last five years hadn't happened I wouldn't understand the positions of two friends at work - one born in Azerbaijan whose family is now in Moscow, the other born in Slovenia with family in Poland and Ukraine - whose love for one another as the only Slavic ex-pats in an Italian resort had them both in tears at lunch yesterday trying to explain their opposing positions. It took having seen close friends divided by the information they'd gotten from FOX vs MSNBC (both started by Nixon crony Roger Ailes, interestingly enough) and unable to understand the other's blindness regarding [insert political candidate here] because everything they'd been told was exactly opposite their friend's knowledge base.
This was what Orwell warned of in '1984' with DoubleSpeak and the rest of his dystopic novel: when words mean the opposite of their original definition and parties divide people based on half-truths and outright lies, then Muscovites and Ukrainians cannot possibly understand one another. Which is why after a year and a half in the wilderness (away from news, social media and virtually all current events) in the heart of the last Administration from late 2016 to early 2018, I returned to the world watching as much as I could stomach, though the extremes like RT & OANN to the right and Jacobin or the Palmer Report to the left often losing me for their obvious agitprop.
I don't find much on the fringes to be reliable and try my best to assiduously cite centrist sources, but without seeing how Fox frames all things Biden or MSNBC frames all things Trump I couldn't possibly understand where my fellow Americans were coming from; the same is true of Anastasia & Fatima. So while we who watch American media are largely in agreement on Putin and Zelenskyy, a woman whose family is hostage to Russian news sources and has to choose between her parents and her friends (or Russian vs American media) finds herself in the same dilemma as the children of ardent Trump supporters, which helps me understand the tens of millions of Americans who voted him into office after hearing him talk about women, taxes and business with such flagrant contempt for basic decency, and then did so again four years later after he'd caused the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen with his response to SARS-CoV-2.
And now I can almost understand all the obedient Germans eighty-three years ago as Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded Poland from the East, and Stalin's obedient Russians who did the same from the West. Almost...
For 15 years I put 25.000-30,000 miles a year on the car, driving all over the state for work. I made a point of listening to Limbaugh and other right wing commentators (the thoughtful and thoughtless) a few minutes a day. I was a self-enforced, captive audience so that made it easier but when I changed jobs that became harder to do. At the time, around 2005, it seemed like reading some George Will, Kathleen Parker, Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, etc. with a sprinkling of Limbaugh was enough to say I made a legitimate effort at balanced input. Now, obviously with the exception of Limbaugh, they can seem so reasonable at times. It’s not me that’s changed, believe me. So where’s the balance come from, Jordan Klepper videos?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXZXT3D0UE
Now it seems like taking a balanced look requires something akin to one of those 50s/60s mental asylum movies where the psychiatrist is staring into a padded room through a one way mirror while the patient decompensates.
I really have to stop taking personally what I consider to be misinformation. That really keeps me from being smart about my reactions.
Disjoint responses:
I was just listening to a podcast where the guest is a paranormal researcher whose premises are non-standard, but who is also highly intelligent not only about that pursuit but about Things Generally. So refreshing.
I started listening to NPR during the last presidential administration, and didn't stop. They cover quite a few perspectives though only extremely seldom anything at an ideological extreme on any side.
I am seldom in waiting rooms any longer, and waiting room TVs now seem not to be so wildly dominated by Fox News, but it used to be inescapable.
For reasons I don't understand, I get promotional emails from several rightie lists, and I read them. Plus fundraising emails and texts.
I have read a ridiculous number of books by Trump administration figures-- I think I'll be drawing the line at William Barr-- and that's how I learned that US GOP folks think they're universally acknowledged as the moral and mental health standards for the universe.
Purity cultures of all sort have a lot to answer for. As usual.
Amen and amen. I read Townhall.com (conservative columnists) which gets my heart up and allows me to skip exercise for the day. I have a limited tolerance for Fox, as well, so nope. Life's too short. And I am on every email subscription list save for Storm Front's (I don't even know if they have an email subscription list) so I can keep up with the latest nonsense.
Oh, and about twenty years ago, hearing about Rush Limbaugh, I listened to a bunch. Now, that was a nasty experience. It wasn't just the stinky-bad logic, which is common enough all round, including in household disputes. It was the dogmatic repetition-with-snotty-affect.
And yet it was useful/sad to get some sense of what so many people were finding so attractive.
I'm thinking that perhaps your starting position is, like mine, one of seldom agreeing entirely with anyone, so not automatically having fainting fits over encountering material you disagree with.
Exactly right.
It's the snotty-affect that I find hard to get past, though once they start on their hamster-wheel of repeated talking points I walk away, hoping that my post with links will lead them to Dr. Cox Richardson, you, NPR, and other reasonable and fact-based positions.
My goal is to find news and opinions that are rooted in facts, or at least attempt to get at the truth. It's discouraging when an opposing view is based on false information and then there is insistence it be given equal weight as if we are arguing over the best pasta dish. Some viewpoints just rate high on truthiness and low on honesty & truth.
After a few conversations with some people in my life, I rapidly find out what messages conservatives are pushing. e.g. People like George Soros and Hunter Biden come up a lot.
I get so frustrated. I did tune into Fox News midday a few days ago. The coverage wasn't awful. However, when I have put on Hannity or Carlson in the past, I last about a minute or two before I can't take it anymore. It's just so hateful and awful, and low on truth.