The Noise: Make It Stop
Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker.
Linus
I don’t know about you, but I’ve come down with a serious case of controversy fatigue.
Deflategate. Keystone. Obamacare. Bieber. Regardless of their relative importance to the world, it seems like every news story hitting the wires these days gets taken directly to DEFCON 1. Mind-numbing debates rage on and on for weeks at a time, and everyone with a screen name and an attitude gets to voice an opinion. Whether those opinions are informed or not bears little relevance to conversation; rather, we now live in a social media world, where it’s more important to shoot first and aim later, and where being right is secondary to being loud.
I place the blame for this perfect storm of bickering squarely on the shoulders of the Internet. Anywhere at any time, a person can find a kernel of information that he or she can use to support an argument. Whether this nugget of knowledge is actual, factual, or spiritual frequently turns into rocket fuel for another round of debate. Moreover, the proliferation of talking heads on the byzantine network of media outlets provides plenty of persuasive ammunition for those too burdened, or too lazy, to think on their own.
This nonstop cycle of noise begs the question; where, once the debate reaches 17.0 on society’s Richter Scale, can one go to find new, germane, and pertinent information? Or a thoughtful opinion based on informed reason rather than passionate bias? And I’m not talking about A) the conservative who listens reverently to Fox; B) the liberal mesmerized by MSNBC; or C) the conspiracy theorist who subscribes to grassyknoll.com. In my opinion, those folks are looking for affirmation, not information. Plus they talk too loud.
For those who give a hoot, the following is a small sample of sources this short and not-quite-as-fat social democrat/fiscal conservative turns to when he wants to find articulate, adult conversation about the issues of the day:
Tom Friedman– The New York Times columnist and bestselling author is considered an authority on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues. That’s a lot. And he’s also won the Pulitzer Prize. Three times.
Colin Cowherd– I love sports, but sports talk shows bore me. Cowherd, host of The Herd with Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio and ESPNU, removes his blinders and discusses the sports topics of the day mixed with a healthy dose of real world pragmatism served with a side order of humor. I download his podcasts nearly every day and listen to them while I work out. Honest.
The Daily Skimm– Required reading with my morning tea. Short and pithy, like me.
Howard Fineman– The editorial director of the Huffington Post Media Group, a lawyer who in an earlier life was Newsweek magazine’s Chief Political Correspondent, comes across as a decent human being who cares about progressive ideals. Plus he doesn’t scream at you.
Milton Friedman– I know, he’s dead. But Uncle Miltie is still the best economist I’ve ever known. Economic principles are like the laws of physics; they don’t change very often.
Anne Hornaday– I love movies, and when I want to turn the world off for a couple of hours, I prefer films recommended by the movie critic for The Washington Post. She nails it.
A man I looked up to while growing up was David Brinkley, an anchor for NBC News. Every word he wrote and spoke mattered. He once wrote a review in a magazine on the film The Graduate. “I didn’t like it very much,” he wrote. And of its broadside condemnation of mature America, “These are harsh judgments. I wonder how often they are true.”
Simply. Gently. Profoundly. That’s my style of debating.