Not for the ones involved though - politicians, writers, union organizers and workers, certain government workers, etc. But it seems like average professional people who actually do follow the news and politics and then just regurgitate what they hear (and actually don't pay too close attention) only do that so they can appear to be up-to-date and with-it.
People who don't have to keep these appearances (the ones who don't go to church or whatever) just say "I don't give a flying f--" - let me watch my NASCAR or wrestling or whatever .. Following the daily news is how we interact on a daily basis: "did you hear that the US dropped the Cuban travel restrictions" -- that is what I was greeted with when I went to work the other day. And this was a person who has no real interest in Cuban/US relations as far as I know. She knew that I'd be interested I bet, and just wanted to make small talk. Maybe she even wanted to jerk my chain. People use tidbits of the news for one-upmanship purposes all the time. Its not really about politics at all for most I think. Its just a way of saying "Yes, I am educated, respectable and responsible - I read the newspapers or watch TV news: I am an informed person" - exactly how the news sells itself. Which goes right along with identifying with the winners - the Repubs right now, CLinton before. You see they are informed, they are in the know, so therefore they are with the ones in power. It makes them feel good about themselves and look good in public - a perfect combination. And maybe it even makes them feel they do have a stake in or control of whets going on. The same reason we follow the goings-on, though I suppose we think we are more engaged, thoughtful - it matters to us.
So it doesn't seem a mystery to me -- maybe this is too simple I don't know -- the mystery seems to be how do you make people care? Unless they are directly affected in some way -- or feel they have been wrongly affected by some given policy or social arrangement -- I'm nor sure its possible ...
Sorry - I guess its been a pessimistic week for me ..
Sally
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org]On Behalf Of Curtiss Leung Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 1:32 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Chomsky/Sports (Was RE: Film Notes)
(Apologies if this comes through as an HTML nightmare...)
No doubt that politics bore many--but they're not the people I'm wondering about. I'm wondering about the folks who are not only able to handle complex concepts, etc., in their work or leisure, but who also *claim* to be interested the political, follow it avidly, but go no further than certain received ideas--usually, alas, from Limbaugh or O'Reilly--or now Glenn Reynolds and his ilk.
Statistic: the Project on International Policy Attitudes released a bulletin back in June that reported among Republicans *who claimed to follow international affairs very closely*, 55% said that WMDs had been found in Iraq. These are folks who report that they're _interested_ and that they follow the news closely, and they've got something pretty basic very wrong. (See http://pipa.org/whatsnew/html/new_6_04_03.html for the press release--right hand side of the page.) These are the people I wonder about. So the question: how to account for this?
Once upon a time I would have said something about such people having their ideological blinders wrapped pretty tightly about their heads. Now I figure that's just stating the problem in different terms.
I work with guys and gals like this. Nice people face to face, capable of complex balancing acts in their work and hobbies but who descend to simplistic or even depraved positions when it comes to politics. I don't get it.
Whatever. I'm certainly not going to be able to figure it out, and it's late.
Curtiss
>It bores them. Most of us would be bored of a
>listserv in which the people wrote back and forth all
>day about their stamp collections (I would). Well,
>believe it or not, a lot of people would find all of
>our political chatter just as boring, if not more
>boring. As much as I like Chomsky, I found his
>statement to reveal a certain self-absorption.
>Somebody should let him in on another secret: most
>people are bored silly by discussions of "deep"
>grammar as well.
>Thomas
>
>=====
><<You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals
>So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel>>
>
>Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch"
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
>http://shopping.yahoo.com
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk