While I posted this today, speaking about the negative impact that memes can have, I should be fair in my reporting and post a meme that will hopefully have a positive impact, or at least get people thinking:
Name the Elephants
Compelling Difficult Conversations
Tagged with Politics …
Memes and the impact on civil discourse
meme /mēm/ Noun
- An element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.
- An image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another.
I am coming to believe that there is nothing more powerful, or more potentially dangerous than a meme. I blame the increased polarization and stagnation that our country faces on how memes have been used to hijack the voting booth and civil discourse in this country.
Astroturfing is one of the political mechanisms that utilizes memes to spread ideas that span the spectrum between complete truth to complete fabrication. Moneyed corporate interests create false grassroots movements while the news and media report similar “facts” to insure the flow of advertising dollars. Soon, public opinion shifts towards policy like Obamacare as being some socialist monstrosity and other falsehoods while just a few years before it was the political right pushing for this as the ideal way to handle the healthcare crisis and booming deficit.
These memes to be sticky require a certain formula as outlined in Made to Stick:
If something is packaged in a compelling (sticky) way that makes an emotional connection with someone, it can become their truth, even if it has no basis in reality.
I think this is at the core of why the country has swung center right, while the political parties have become more extreme. The political right is winning the meme war, as their approach is focused simplicity with emotional stories.
This is usually visible if one were to visit a protest held by a right leaning organization or cause followed by one on the left.
The protest held by the right is usually focused on one topic, with clear messaging… ie a Tea Party with signs talking about freedom and down with taxes.
The protest held by the left, ie Iraqi Veterans Against the War will generally have signs about green energy, surveillance, legalizing pot, the dying polar bears, allowing for third parties in the election process, pro-unions, global trade agreements… from a systems standpoint these connections might have truth, but it is not a simple compelling story.
A healthy, independent media and strengthened school system that teaches critical thinking would be an inoculation against the viral misleading memes that have caused our country to become sick. In my own community, Thin Air Radio has done quite a bit of good.
What are the efforts in your community to increase critical thinking in schools and strengthen independent media sources? In what instances have you seen memes used for good? Have you scene memes cause harm?
War and Peace and Why the Military Matters
This was a speech written by the husband a couple years ago. Given some of the anti-military rhetoric I saw spewed yesterday across the interwebs, I thought this might be a nice counterpoint. Cross-posted from my personal blog.
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): Warriors know that to win, you must know yourself and know your opponent. We get that directly from the war philosopher, Sun Tzu.
This is one of the few blogs I follow... I praise LeftFace for the way in which they challenge norms and misconceptions of not only what military spouses are like, but what people who are involved in the military are like and what it's all about. They are able to hold conversations that cross artificial dichotomies forced on us by our political system and a black and white worldview.
Keep it up.
Gun control and living for the now
The last few days I’ve seen a rise in the call for either further control or a complete ban of guns in the United States in the wake of the tragedy in Aurora. I believe that a lot of what has been called for in gun control (or banning) policy would be a bandaid on the issue.
My daughter learning how to safely shoot a gun with her papa.
I was once deeply acquainted with a survivor of a school shooting that happened right before Columbine, and I remember late night conversations with her and PTSD attacks (as well as media and politician calls on anniversaries). She said that gun control was not the answer, but a deep shift in how we treat one another held the key.
If someone is sick enough to want to kill and maim people, they will find a way. Period.
Not only that, but horrible things happen as a part of life. This is quite true to me right now as I have one loved one in the hospital for a suicide attempt and another in a coma from a long boarding accident… the only way to be “safe” is to lose our liberty, to not live. Some precautions make sense (like registering guns or wearing a helmet when on a long board) but some of what is being called for is not only invasive but scary in how much access the government would be given to our lives and private details.
All we have is now. In the wake of the news of the shooting and my friends who are in the hospital, I packed up my car and within half an hour my kid and dogs and I were on the road to have an adventure at a lake where I used to be a park ranger. I told my daughter that life is too short and unpredictable, and that what we had right then was the most important thing in the world. I was done worrying and crying, I couldn’t do anything more or control what had happened.
My daughter at Priest Lake yesterday.
I refuse to live in fear. I love going to the opening night of certain movies and won’t let one anomaly change my behavior. I don’t want the same invasive experience I must endure to fly to also happen when entering a school or movie theatre. We can either build and legislate tougher and tougher “protections,” or actively work to create a better world where we have liberty and look out for one another. The only other option is to change our government to a more authoritarian emphasis, and pray that one of the sickos we want to protect ourselves from doesn’t end up in power and turn the military’s guns against us when we step out of line.
I believe the gun control issue has been polarized, like abortion, marriage equality, immigration reform… what if we instead focused on what people on both sides of the political spectrum wanted and agreed to sort out where we differ afterwards? If we turned our energy from fighting one another into forward momentum, imagine where we could be.
I would love to hear your thoughts. My hope is to start conversations, not just stand on a soapbox.
Vagina is a 6 Letter Word
I love what these ladies (two 80 year olds with a blog) have to say. You go grandmas!!
Give me the same rights my dogs have. Please.
Lately I’ve been pondering double standards. There seems to be no end to examples of this, but one of the most notable has been what we advocate as good for our pets, but “bad” for us.
It is largely accepted and viewed as normal behavior that we spay and neuter our pets to prevent overpopulation in all but a small subset of the population (I’m looking at you, cocky guy with your unaltered male Pit Bulls. If you are so big on appearances, do us and your dog a favor and check out these). No one looks at someone with a sense of shock when they mention that they spayed or neutered their pet. If anything you get an approving nod and a discount on your pet’s license.
EUTHANASIA
Same goes with euthanizing a sick and/or old pet. “It’s best that you put them out of their misery,” people will say, “they’ve gone to a better place.” If anything, keeping an ill animal alive is looked down upon as not only a waste of money but potential cruelty.
Euthanasia is illegal in all states of the United States. Physician aid-in-dying (PAD), or assisted suicide, is legal in the states of Washington, Oregon, and Montana. I would love to see personal liberty and cultural acceptance of the ability to choose to end my life if I am terminally ill and wish to not suffer, as well as the ability to choose to not reproduce through sterilization. I am not for any sort of government mandates or ridiculous “death panels” or “reproductive panels.” I just want to have access to the same options (without shame or violating the law) that my dogs have.
STERILIZATION
But if this same pet owner were to say that they wish to be sterilized, or euthanized if they were to get terminally ill, they could become an object of derision and scorn. I know, because I’ve experienced this on both accounts. This is not to say that I am not estactic for my dear friends who are all having babies (as we are at the age where baby making is happening), as I know they are going to make amazing parents and that their children are proof of a positive future; I just have no desire to join them. I’m also finding I’m not alone in this.
In a day and age where there are no protests outside animal control offices for their policy of advocating for the sterilization of animals, it’s a source of cognitive dissonance when people get in an uproar over someone deciding not to reproduce (and avoid potential unplanned for children, reducing the chances of potential abortions). I had mentioned in my previous post how I have a background of belonging to a church that protested outside abortion clinics. Now, I don’t know of anyone who is “pro-abortion” or into recreational abortions. It’s a horrible and gut-wrenching decision for anyone to make, and not one to be made lightly. It’s because of my wish to never again be in that position that I asked after the birth of my daughter to have my tubes tied in 2002.
My doctor refused.
“You are young. You should have more children, they won’t all be like this.” (What I can only assume was referring to my experience giving birth to a child outside of marriage.)
I’ve heard this story often recently, of young men and women who are sure that they don’t wish to have (more) children that are turned away by their doctor and/or chastised by friends and family (married, in committed relationships, or not). Many of these people express a wish to adopt instead of creating their own children, or are like me have such a bad reaction to birth control and are content with the children they already have. Even some have no desire to ever have children. If someone clearly of their own free will has made this choice not to bring any more little people into the world, why is this wrong? They know their hearts and their minds better than we do, and who are we to impose our laws and morality upon someone else?
As a result of this refusal, as I’ve tried to gain control of my heavy and irregular cycles, I’ve been through the birth control gauntlet. Now, after a particularly brutal reaction from an IUD where I gained 80lbs. I was finally granted an ablation this year where my uterine lining was cauterized and no longer functional–rendering me essentially sterile. I’m still trying to get my health back, and this would not have been an issue had my original decision been honored by my doctor. I’m content and happy with my one child, my wishes never changed.
I understand the fallacies in logic of drawing likeness between out pets and ourselves, as pets don’t have a choice in the matter. I just don’t know of a better way to point out a lack of self-determination in citizens in the United States. If anything, I see both of these as being responsible especially when considering diminishing resources and how much of both birth and death is often paid for by the taxpayer.
I would love to hear if you disagree with this, and why.
If you do agree, I would love to hear your stories on this and other areas where you own personal liberty is denied, either through laws or societal mores.
Pride and Grace
This last weekend, as the bass for the Pride Seattle parade boomed outside my classroom, I made a tough confession. It was this confession that contained the seeds for this blog.
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“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”
-Lev 18:22-23
I wish I could recollect how many times I’ve heard this scripture from the pulpit. I used to be involved with the Evangelical Christian movement as I was a member of a church that held “defense of marriage” rallies in the local sports arena and protested outside abortion clinics. I would tell gay people to their faces that I loved them, but that being gay was a disease like cancer that needed to be cured. I proclaimed that abortion was wrong, except maybe in the case of rape.
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This summer I am enrolled in Social Web for Social Change, an offering of Bainbridge Graduate Institute where I am a Sustainable MBA candidate. I travelled to Seattle last weekend for the face to face portion of our class, which coincided with the annual celebration of Pride that was happening right outside BGI’s downtown Seattle office. Sometimes I feel a bit out of place at my school which noticeably leans left politically with my more conservative, Eastern Washington roots.
We were asked what our motivation was by our professor. When it was my turn, I shared that my daughter had changed my life and was my core motivation. She was conceived through date rape when I was on vacation in Arizona with a man I had just met. I was involved in the ministry at the time, and the pregnancy resulted in my expulsion from the community. The very same week, a friend of mine who was gay killed himself because he couldn’t change who he was.
While this time in my life shook me to my core, I’m so grateful. It’s true that we need to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, as my mind and how I saw the world was blown wide open once things were more than just theoretical. While I kept my daughter, and she’s amazing, I’m able to offer grace to those who make different decisions. There is nothing tougher than being a single parent, even when one is surrounded by a supporting community. But moreover, I’m now a staunch supporter of the LGBTQ community. Seeing first hand the impact of judgement upon someone who tried to change who they were and saw the only relief being death changed my mind. How could a religion based on love shut the door on us when we needed it the most?
I have more stories to tell at a later date about this. But for now I will share the unconditional acceptance I felt in the air at Pride during a break in class. It was so hard to go inside as I looked around and saw people free of shame and being completely who they were. While some of it was indeed over the top and sometimes in poor taste and/or for pure shock value, the majority of the people I saw in the crowd were ordinary people. It hit me how I felt more of the unconditional love spoken of by Jesus here than in most of the churches I’ve sat in with the heavy pressure of being good enough weighing everyone down. Pride felt amazing, and freeing.
Picture from Pride, 2012
To my class this weekend, I confessed my judgements, and my past. I’m not out to change anyone’s mind or beliefs with this blog, but I do hope that I can make the case for being more understanding of one another. Instead of using scripture and political heft to deny rights to a subset of our population, we could guarantee liberty to all and let each make their own peace with God as they see (or don’t) see it. I am holding space in my heart for a day when we can live side by side and love one another, without sexual identity, religion or any other divider standing between us.
I’ve been on both sides of the culture war of sexual identity and the abortion debate. I understand the fear and genuine desire to do good held by the conservative camp, as well as the desire for love and acceptance on the progressive side of the issue. I can say with no hesitation that both sides have more in common than not, and that neither side is served by this polarization.
Can you remember a time when how you saw the world was turned upside down and “truth” was no longer absolute?
