You young people out there may be puzzled why oldsters pass opinions early and often on any subject that comes up.  I know I was, and didn’t feel comfortable chiming in myself until relatively late.

Partially, it was because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise around family and friends.  More importantly, I was under the impression you ought to be awful sure of your facts before you uttered some pronouncement.  And, the more you know about anything, the more you know how much you don’t know.

Can this lead to a Hamlet syndrome of never doin’ nothin’?  Certainly.  Seems to me that’s far better, though, than the current trend, which is the childhood game of Gossip run amok.

Here’s an exercise for you:  survey several shows on several channels over a few days as a new “story” breaks.  (To make it less painful, you can substitute sports for news–the same syndrome applies.)   You’ll notice groupthink set in as one show after another starts repeating the same speculation, and using the same phrases.  You’ll watch “conventional wisdom” shift from one extreme to another, and probably back again.  Months later, an aside will reveal the truth was something  never mentioned.

I’d blame Big Media, but there would be no supply if there was no demand.  The buck stops with each of us; and the Gossip chain does too.

Not only is elementary propaganda as effective as ever on our population, we’re backsliding on our collective ability to weigh the relative merits of information.  Gossip, like other pathogens, thrives on human populations.  We all remember from elementary school how messages get twisted in a round of Gossip, the game; we’d do well to be a bit skeptical of everything we hear.

Science and philosophy use the term “first principles” to fundamental assumptions that can’t be derived from others.  Still, they’re assumptions–and can be proven incorrect or incomplete over time.  Researchers weigh information by its “source” level; primary sources are far more valuable than secondary ones, secondary sources are always verified multiple times, and even then are second-class.  Sourcing is an inexact science, to be sure, but useful as a primary filter for any communications we receive.

Journalism pays attention to sourcing in theory, but is often (usually, historically speaking?) corrupted by corporate or other vested interests.  If one is actively using electronic media these days, you’re usually in the realm of tertiary sources; as the name implies, the equivalent of gossip in the amount of influence one should give it. Perhaps it has developed innocently enough, given the quest to fill 24 hours a day on so many channels; after all, how much is there to say that’s truly news?  A survey of multiple channels over a couple of days reveals the Gossip game at play; people repeating each other’s “happy talk” until they all come to the same “conventional wisdom.”

It’s up to you, the consumers of information, to demand better quality of your suppliers.  Challenging as many of your own assumptions as possible–let alone information items heard–is hard, requires diligence, and asking “how do you know that?” repeatedly may be downright dangerous around some people, but it’s got to be done.  Anything that’s real will bear the scrutiny.

Leaving aside the Golden Rule, in our “outta my way, I’m getting mine” weekday lives we seem to be ever quicker at categorizing and dismissing others we don’t instantly understand.  It certainly is harder on a body trying not to jump to conclusions.

It’s too easy to fall into the sort of mental dyspepsia so widespread on (hate-) talk radio and TV:  spit out an opinion first, think later.  Forget walking a mile in someone’s shoes, most of us haven’t tried another style of footwear in years.

By “compassion,” we’re really talking about understanding:  why do others do as they do, and is there anything about them we can incorporate to better our lives.  Show the simple respect of first assuming they have a reason for how they are; when you truly have evidence to make a judgment, then by all means (just remember your house is closer to glass than you think).

The dirty little secret here–it takes real strength.  If you’re truly secure in what you believe, then how can you be hurt by being open to another of God’s creatures?  Jesus was always hanging out with the “great unwashed,” not being a yes-man to the hoi polloi.  (Just between you and me–real people are far more interesting, anyway.)

People with damage to the prefrontal cortex cannot understand sarcasm.

Aha!  50% of the people I’ve ever talked to have brain damage!  They’re “humor-blind”!

Evidence seems overwhelming that there are different basic brain types.  Many of us live in a world of black and white and two dimensions.  Others see multiple dimensions, multiple shades of gray.  These worlds intersect in precious few areas, and only hard work on both sides can keep the inter-dimensional rift open.

Some seem born to be decisive, take-charge leaders; others, who perceive the subtleties that may need to mollify such decisiveness, are important too.

Until we accept inherent differences–that no amount of argument, bribery, or physical violence will alter–we’re doomed to the sorts of conflicts that have plagued homo sapiens since day one.  That’s not to say we all can’t try harder to work on stuff we don’t “get”–a mind is a terrible thing to waste, after all, and it’s just sitting there (getting into trouble, left to its own devices).

It’s too late for “affirmative action.”  The term has been drug through the mud, rode hard, and put away wet so long that hardly anyone can remember the initial impetus and good intentions of (let alone actual progress made by) the concept.

So now it seems most people sneer at “political correctness,” as well.  What is there not to like about the idea of treating people nicely?  What’s wrong with applying the Golden Rule?  Is it just too much to ask to give up some crass humor at others’ expense, or purge a few words from our water-cooler speech?

The impetus behind the concept seems to lie in correcting some lazy habits in society, which have perpetuated for generations just because the some couldn’t handle the “other-ness” of smaller segments of that society.  The term itself probably was invented by a sneer-er, but there’s so much mis-information out on the internet by rabid fringers it’s hard to tell.

The struggle is like so many others America has faced.  Smoking is perhaps the most recent dramatic example of societal change.  Today, the vast majority of us think it’s a bad thing, and understand certain addictive personalities haven’t yet quit.  For generations, though, the feeling was militantly opposite, and no one could have envisioned the completeness of the turnaround.  Early warners were villified, slandered, and more.  Still, the facts and information trickled out, like water eroding a mountain.

Maybe the resentment builds from the idea of good intentions being reinforced by the legal system.  Many see this as top-down, imposed morality; agreed, not the optimal way to achieve the goal.  On the other hand–it took hundreds of years, and a war, to get rid of slavery, and another hundred years to overcome detestable obstruction to make something even approaching equal opportunity available to all our citizens.  We wouldn’t need laws if all of us “got” the same concepts.

Of course, much of the “PC” noise has originated in academia.  For all the conspiracy nuts who rail at the “liberalism” therein, here’s a radical thought:  just because people who know a lot tend to hold a certain view, it may not be that they’re biased–it could just be they’re correct.  There are wackos of every stripe with tenure, and, while teachers can have a charismatic effect of a handful of their students, it does no harm to be open to the world; otherwise, you just have the flip side of all those doctrinaire Islamic schools you’re complaining about.

In spite of ourselves, those you might consider “scolds” have slowly had some impact.  The fact enough progress was made that a backlash developed must mean we’re on the right track.   Yes, the application of schoolmarm-ish tactics by some is heavy-handed and counter-productive.  But again, the greater good–can’t we agree on the goal, and discuss the tactics?

More than ever, any inference that the emperor has no clothes seems to incite the wrath of the rabble, so I choose my words carefully. The great thing about the “democratization” of communication–which the internet has expanded exponentially–is that anyone can say anything. The downside–anyone can say anything.

Most blogs are no more than a personal diary. Throughout history, the odd diary has been an influential publication–but I challenge you to name more than a handful. Thus, the sudden sprouting of millions of diaries worldwide seems like the worst of vanity press; if a blog appears in a forest, does anyone notice?

Well, we’ll see if this media lasts. I’m aiming for more of a series of mini-essays, so here goes nothing….

– Dan Langhoff