posted 9 years ago
I'd say that one of the worst - and most absurd - things about modern politics is that in a digital world, we've become digital people.
Instead of wanting to use digital resources to expand our analog horizons, we contract our horizons to simple on/off, yes/no. You're either With Me or you're With the Enemy. There can be no compromise. Victory must be total. The enemy must be exterminated. No room for differences of opinion, no pity for those who do not agree. Burn them at the stake and then turn you your favorite "fair and balanced" news outlet so that you'll be among people who, like you, think correctly. Any deviation and you're a RINO/DINO and a heretic. In our own way, we're just as savage as if we took literal swords into the halls of government with the intent of hacking off heads.
One of the things that this over-simplification does is provide a small simple set strings and levers that make us all - both voters and politicians - more easy to manipulate. You can duckspeak all day long and never have to worry about needing to think for yourself. You can use the Internet to pull up whatever facts and numbers "prove" that you're unquestionably right. And, if you're cynical enough, you can make others dance the way you like just by pressing the right buttons.
It's a very impoverished world when we should be experiencing an era of plenty. No colors, no music, not even any shades of gray. It's a way of thinking that was more appropriate back when we were all simple farmers and herdsmen and the least mistake could starve the tribe/village, but you'd think we'd have outgrown it.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.