Two Plus Two Older Archives  

Go Back   Two Plus Two Older Archives > Other Topics > Politics

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #31  
Old 04-20-2005, 10:03 AM
ACPlayer ACPlayer is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Foxwoods, Atlantic City, NY, Boston
Posts: 1,089
Default Re: The Land of Opportunity

nuance

A mostly lost concept in political discourse (see Fox, Rush, the two parties, any senator,congress man, cabinet member, most posters on this forum).
Reply With Quote
  #32  
Old 04-20-2005, 11:02 AM
DVaut1 DVaut1 is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 27
Default Re: The Land of Opportunity

[ QUOTE ]
nuance
A mostly lost concept in political discourse

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree.

[ QUOTE ]
Fox, Rush, the two parties, any senator,congress man, cabinet member, most posters on this forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of these people/entities are capable of nuance, I'm sure. They/we just choose not to, because discourse with people we disagree with is often difficult and frustrating. We'll frequently encounter opponents who will challenge us; these opponents will challenge our deepest held beliefs, and challenge everything we thought we knew, and it infuriates/frightens us. Studying politics/philosophy/jurisprudence for ourselves is difficult, and we might find information that challenges what we think we know, so we reject it altogether, without giving our opponent's views the respect they often deserve.

In the case of Fox, it's motivated by ratings and profit; many of us don't have the time/energy/motivation to learn the nuances of the news, so to speak. So we use Bill O'Reilly to fill us in. And the less nuance Bill O'Reilly uses, the better, because it just affirms what we already (wrongly) suspected - the world isn't complicated, it's black and white, and we don't need to take the time to study news/politics/policy, because we know everything anyway. I think the same applies to Limbaugh, except his audience is narrower and consists mainly of right-oriented listeners anyway, or left-oriented listeners looking to get angry.

As far as elected leaders go, I think their motivation is similar. Constituents are busy, politics is difficult to understand, news is endless/hard to follow/often lacks context, and people who think differently than us are really annoying; "since I couldn't possibly learn it all," the constituent thinks, "it's easiest not to learn any"; actually, I believe the average American wants to learn politics/philosophy; they're just too lazy to put in the work. So they rely on generalizations and false assumptions, which reinforce whatever their preconceived notions are. Politicians prey on this, and demand that we throw aside nuance, because it gets in the way of their practical ends - that is, demonization of the opponent.

I have high hopes for the posters on this board; they're all (I think?) poker players. They understand nuance. Or they should. When a new poker player asks, "I have KQo and some guy raises to my right - what do I do?!?!", the answer is, of course, "It depends."

I believe poker players, more than most, ought to understand that when Pundits/Anchors/Politicians/BlowHards say "Liberals are evil! Wrong on history! Taxes are bad!", or "Conservatives are evil! They hate women and minorities! They hate the poor!", these statements lack the necessary intricacy. Poker players ought to see the similarities between newbie poker players and the punditry/politicians, and recognize that both lack the necessary complexities and that we have to look deeper - much deeper.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:44 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.