My last post of this nature – What is a Christian? – was so fun and lively that I thought it needed a reprise. Plus, several comments were made in that thread that make this a very germane question in my mind…
What is the Bible?
As with the last question, I will withhold my opinion / beliefs until a little later in the discussion. In the meantime, what’s your take?
Technorati tags: the Bible
This one’s been a while in coming…
Is the press in America “free and neutral”, as prescribed by the Bill of Rights? This is a question that evokes adamant response from lots of people. Many would swear on their grandmother that the New York Times (for example) is predominantly liberal and wouldn’t give President Bush (for example) a fair shake if their lives depended on it. Others scream and yell that most of the media is “fair and balanced”, and that it’s the Fox News Network that’s gone off the rails in their conservative bias. I feel like I’ve heard just about everything. Maybe there’s no bias at all. One of my friend’s claims that all news is biased toward the sensational, not in one ideological direction or another. Some contend that the senior staff at the Fox News Channel meets every morning to read through the talking points faxed to them by the White House the night before and to go over how they’ll spin their programming conservative that day. Others contend that the networks plus CNN get their marching orders directly from satan’s representative to the UN. Does the “elite media” really hate Bush, so they’ll simply never give him a “fair shake”? What is the “elite media” anyway? Some content that there’s no real ideological difference between CNN, FNC and the BBC (to name a few). So, what’s the deal? To borrow a phrase from my Bill O’Reilly, who’s looking out for us?
I’ll start with what’s fresh in my mind…
I recently saw a shoot-out between Bernie Goldberg and Jane Hall on FNC. These two disagreed vehemently on the topic of liberal bias. Bernie took the traditional conservative point of view — that most of the media tilts left, and specifically is unfair to President Bush (that was the real topic of their debate). Jane feels there is no bias, and that indeed the media should be harder on Bush.
Bernie cited two examples to prove his point…
After the Republicans gained control of congress in 1994, much media focus was given and much speculation aired as to why that had happened (and rightfully so). Peter Jennings (for example) compared the voters who voted republican to “two year olds throwing a temper tantrum”, as an explanation for why the democrats lost. Bernie contended that if the Democrats regain control of the congress next month, reporting will be very different. (This was before the 11/8 election.) He has a hard time imagining that the general attitude among the descendants of Peter Jennings (and others) will play it the same way … and so did I. It seemed much more likely that we would hear the same thing from most of the media… that President Bush is a lying, war-mongering, election-stealing, fascist, rights-violating, power-grabbing incompetant, who finally got what was coming to him because the congress has shifted power. And this is pretty much how it played out.
Bernie also cited a comparison between headlines under Bush and headlines under Clinton. He described the following example… When the Dow Jones reached record highs in October (and still climbing), the Chicago Tribune’s headline was “As Dow Surges, Many Left Behind” — a negative tilt. In 2000, another time the Dow surged to record highs, the same paper ran a different headline, “Bull Market Spreading the Wealth in America” — a positive tilt. These are only two headlines, and they’re obviously cherry-picked to demonstrate his point, but I think there’s some legitimacy to what he’s pointing out here. Clinton was hailed as a wonderful president by both domestic and international news sources. He got beat up over Monica Lewinski, but was pretty much the golden boy on everything else. Bush has been attacked every single day by SO many people that it blurs together. Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see, but I don’t think so.
Jane disagreed with Bernie, but really didn’t have any data to refute Bernie’s argument or offer counter-point examples of a lack of bias. She simply insisted that she was right and Bernie was wrong. Even this reality helps reinforce for me that there’s more to Bernie’s arguement than hers.
Let’s leave these two behind, and look at some other data points…
The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media. They conduct research reports on news coverage of such diverse issues as economics, science, and politics. The CMPA recently analyzed the coverage of the president by ABC, NBC and CBS year-to-date in 2006, and discovered that 75% of the coverage of the president was negative. That’s an incredible leaning toward “anti-Bush”. Does it say that the press is liberally biased? Not necessarily. I’d like to see analogous studies during past presidents’ terms. Plus, war is never a good thing for a president. But this definitely doesn’t refute the “liberal bias in the press” thesis. (BTW, here’s the complete study if you want to look it over. Very interesting.)
A recent study conducted by UCLA’s Department of Political Science (no bastion of conservative thinking) concluded that there is indeed “a very significant liberal bias”. They cited that only one program on Fox News was left of the average position in congress, supporting the claims made by people like O’Reilly that FNC has opinion all over the map, while most outlets predominantly allow opinion clustered only around group think liberalism. A side note… This can be combined with another UCLA study (HypergeneMediaBlog’s highlights) which showed that 53% of the population generally believes what they read on the Internet, and it becomes easy to understand why a bias in the media is so significant.
Last data point… Recently, I made the commitment to Neva that I would return to listening to NPR occasionally to get some more exposure to “liberal media”. Having listened to several hours of NPR over the last few weeks, my opinion is unchanged. It seems to me to be clearly tilted to the left. The opinions given credence there were liberal, and the opinions that were demeaned (most commonly in the tone of voice / slant of the way they were questioned) were conservative.
So, based on my experience, and a few evidentiary data points, I conclude that the media generally tilts left. Why do I think this is? Well, let me tell you…
First, I’ve already talked about left-brained vs. right-brained people, and how they naturally gravitate toward certain professions and not others. Journalism is a *very* right-brained profession. So, if you accept any of my theories about right-brained types being more liberal, then this helps explain the bias. But even if you don’t, read on…
Almost all of the most significant media players in the country are clustered together in a few couple-square-mile areas. Manhattan island, certain parts of LA, etc. For example, every journalist who works for the NY Times (facesiously, but you get the idea) lives within one mile of every other journalist who works there. These folks all go to the same parties, bars, restaurants, meetings, etc. They all know that if you walk into one of those parties and say, “I just published my column on how wonderful President Bush and the Fox News Channel are”, then they’re ostracized. Might as well be a lepper. So that’s just not going to happen. It creates (even subconsciously) group-think … because everyone wants to be accepted by their peers.
And that’s assuming that openly liberal heads of organizations (such as Arthur Sulzberger at the New York Times) would even hire someone who thinks radically differently than they do, which doesn’t seem likely – unless (as the LA Times has done of late) they are making an intentional effort to create a balanced perspective inside their organization.
Other thoughts? I know they’re out there.
Technorati tags: media bias, new york times, FNC
Both in this blog and in the culture at large, I have heard a number of comments lately that make me curious about how people view Christianity – even their own faith, etc. One of the ideas that’s been thrown out a couple times is that Christianity has been “hijacked by the conservative right”, strongly implying that there’s a “real Christianity” and a “fake new Christianity” (my words, my interpretation), and I’m very interested in understanding what was meant by that.
So, (this time) without spouting my own beliefs, I want to ask the crowd…
What is a Christian?
After a few people have chimed in, I’m sure I’ll give my thoughts and there’ll be plenty of discussion.
Technorati tags: christianity, religious right
In a recent discussionon the beliefs and preferences of Americans, we broached the topic of academic liberal bias. I would like to take a particular subset of that discussion, and blow it out for further / more indepth debate…
Neva, a frequent contributor to this blog, made the following point…
Most scientists [do not] support conservative causes [because] Conservatives are promoting the suppression of reason. Conservatives have tied themselves to the religious groups that are trying to interfere the teaching of science in our schools. Conservatives are finding “experts” (with theories not published in any peer-reviewed literature) who will claim global warming isn’t occurring so that policy-makers don’t have to put restrictions on big businesses and their carbon emissions.
This is an interesting thought. I want to leave the global warming debate behind for a second and focus on her other point … teaching science in schools. I’m not certain that Neva’s directly referencing the debate between the theories of evolution, creationism and intelligent design, but these are a great example for the point I want to make in this blog entry. So we’ll focus there…
Although I agree that there are conservatives who have blinders on, and only want to entertain their own points of view in an academic setting, I would submit that this problem is just as rampant, if not more so, among liberals. I support neither side in this, believing that we should have open debate about what we know to be true (because it can be proven) and about what we believe to be true (because we function on faith based on evidence). My point in this blog entry is to draw distinction between the two, because it seems to me that few in the debate are willing or able to do so.
The theory of evolution is part science and part philosophy. Natural selection is an observed phenomenon. You can put it in a test tube, test it applying scientific method, and draw conclusions that can then be further tested, etc. That’s science. But to draw from those tests the conclusion that all life everywhere came about from nothing by random chance through the process of evolution is not science, it’s philosophy. There is no way to prove such a conclusion, it is faith based on evidence.
The theory of intelligent design is the same thing – part science, part philosophy. In every part of my life I observe that complex (or even simple) design requires a designer. Physics tells us that order tends toward chaos, not the other way around. We know from emperical evidence that in every case, if a closed system is going to become more structured, organized, etc, then energy is required. These are all scientific observations and discussions. However, it’s philosophy to draw the conclusion from these observations that there must be an all-powerful God who created the universe. We cannot prove or disprove such a statement. Faith based on evidence is required.
And this is where I struggle with Neva’s categorical claim that conservatives are supressing scientific knowledge and advancement. Although there are conservative whack-jobs (many very well-meaning) who would turn the US into a theocracy and who would overturn science in schools for the sake of far-more-blind-than-I’m-comfortable-with faith, this is not the majority. This perspective also no more represents mainstream thought in the conservative movement than partial birth abortion does in the liberal movement.
In my experience (mostly watching these cases come up in court and on the news, as well as having a brother who’s a science teacher), it is extremely common for liberals to cry “blasphemy” every time it is even suggested that we give *any* credence to *any* theory other than strict evolution in schools. I find very few liberals who are even willing to admit that the theory of evolution is part philosophy. They consider it to be pure science through and through, totally proven, and something that cannot be questioned by anyone who is to be taken seriously in academic circles. Would it not be more wise, more intellectually honest, and more helpful to students to give them multiple sides… “Here’s what the research shows, and here’s the conclusions scientists have drawn from that research. These scientists believe this, and these other scientists believe this.” ?
The debate over global warming is the same. Both sides can produce evidence to support their already-drawn conclusions, but both conclusions are partially philosophical. “The earth is heating up recently” is provable in a test tube. The statement “this is solely the fault of the SUV and big business, and we’re going to destroy the planet” cannot. Neither can “this is a natural cycle, and things will return back to normal eventually”. Personally, I’m very in favor of being more respectful of and cautious with the environment. I think republicans fall down here. However, there are many liberals who would take it too far, and be perfectly happy to level our economy to save the spotted owl. We need some clear-headed compromise and practical steps in this area, not extremism – from either side. (Parenthetically, I also believe in this particular case that it would be better to err on the side of caution, given how devastating the results could be if the libs’ perspective is accurate.)
But this is exactly why I bring up this point. As long as both sides are running around claiming that their philosophy is proven science, I don’t see how we can ever get to this much needed point of compromise. Can’t we all just admit that we’re functioning as much on faith as science, then start a dialogue on how we can meet in the middle?
Technorati tags: science, philosophy, education, evolution, intelligent design, global warming
I had an epiphany the other day… That liberals and conservatives differ sharply in terms of whom they fundamental trust to have their best interests in mind. My observation was that conservatives generally trust the business world more than they trust the government, and that for liberals it’s the opposite. Libs would rather put their faith in the government than in business. Conservatives tend to trust the military more than liberals do. Liberals have much greater faith in human nature than conservatives do. Trust in God is all over the map, as is trust in self – probably not breaking down along liberal-vs-conservative philosophical lines. It seems to me that these fundamental “trust vectors” play a critical role in understanding where liberals and conservatives are coming from on a number of issues, including some of the hot spots we’ve discussed recently: universal (socialized) health care, social security, the culture war, closing the wealth gap in America, etc.
My first question… Do you agree with the above statements? My second is “why are these statements true?”
For instance, why do conservatives seem to ignore the concern that if a company is focused “only on making a profit”, then they could very easily be willing to step on the little guy, the environment, the law, etc in the proces? We see this happen all the time, and it’s getting worse. CEO’s are taking salaries 10x what they used to be, in comparison to their workers, for example.
Why do liberals seem to ignore the historical reality that when you trust the government with too much (socialism / communism) and undermine capitalistic forces like the free market, competition, etc then you end up with totalitarianism that oppresses just about everyone? (Well, everyone except the guy at the top taking everything for himself — through the governmental structure we were supposed to be able to trust.) They say they don’t want that, but they openly admit that they trust the government with their money more than business, use the word “profit” like a swear word (and in order to do away with it, you have to do away with competition), etc.
Why do conservatives feel that human nature is fundamentally corrupt, and constantly want to compensate for that? Can’t they have a little faith in people!?
Why do liberals (far more than conservatives) mistrust the military? The Iraq conflict has been an extremely clear indicator of this – when liberals over and over again assumed the military was guilty 5 minutes after suspicion of guilt was raised. From Abu Grab Prison to Guantanamo Bay to a dozen times when our troops were assumed to have shot innocent people in cold blood before a second of investigation had occurred. Some have even called the terrorists “freedom fighters” while calling our troops “oppressors”. Why is that?
So, my question to you… Are these stereotypes real? And if so, why?
I submit that one reason is a left-brained / right-brained thing. Typically, right-brained people are more emotional and heart-based. They’re creative, artistic, etc. These people have a tendency to be more liberal, because the decide by feeling. Typically, left-brained people are more rational and brain-based. They’re analytical, math and engineering types, etc. These people have a tendency to be more conservative, because they decide by analysis. This isn’t to say that left-brain people are smarter or more sane (not that definition of “rational”) than right-brain people, it’s just different … and a difference that seems to be important. Also, keep in mind that stereotypes are about the majority – not every single person. There are always exceptions.
An example… the trusting business vs. trusting government thing. I think much of the reason liberals don’t trust business and conservatives do, is that most conservatives understand business better. The average liberal, not very familiar with business, fears it and makes their decisions based solely on the fact that they’re seeing the little guy get screwed by the big guy … and that’s just not fair. They’re right, that is happening, and it’s not fair, but macro economic questions such as universal health care are about way more than that reality. However, I don’t think many liberals see it that way. They are “choosing sides” over a knee-jerk emotional reaction, not over a thorough understanding of the economic implications of their choice. They choose government, because it’s the opposing force to choose. Their choice isn’t so much “pro-government”, it’s “anti-business”.
Distrust of the military is another example. Guns are bad; they hurt people. I’m a pacifist; I believe we should not hurt people. We have no right to run around on other nations’ soil and shoot people. Etc. These are all very legitimate ways to feel, but they don’t make good governmental policy. This kind of thinking gets people killed. So, the military is chalk-full of hard-core-rational-analysis people who know what needs to be done to secure the nation, win the war, defeat the enemy, etc. Those who have the same perspective on the outside are their supporters, and those who think some of the bad-guns, pacifism, stay-out-of-their-business thoughts I described above not only don’t join the all-volunteer military, but are its detractors from the outside.
Okay, enough of my bloviating. Other opinions? Analysis of my comments?
Technorati tags: liberal philosophy, conservative philosophy, government, business, human stereotypes
Breaking Away: Jeff Block's Blog 