tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3295297961169603838.post4064792950320792842..comments2024-03-27T09:32:51.954-07:00Comments on Dialogue & Discourse: a blog by Donna Halper: Fooling Too Many of the People Too Much of the Time Donna Halperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08709120386388369898noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3295297961169603838.post-36845143008863990132015-07-14T19:51:33.215-07:002015-07-14T19:51:33.215-07:00One of my most jarring memories of such an example...One of my most jarring memories of such an example of letting Hollywood dictate our beliefs was when CBS News aired an interview with Matt Damon as he lambasted Sarah Palin. It wasn't his views of Palin that upset me; it was the fact that a news outlet was using a relatively young, inexperienced Hollywood up-and-comer to disparage a relatively young, inexperienced Washington up-and-comer. And people ate it up! I don't recall any substance from that interview because I choose more credible sources from which to form my opinions than Will Hunting, but I certainly remember marking that moment as a new benchmark in wide-scale, media-induced, social engineering.<br /><br />But then I wonder who is to be held accountable? The media is a business. They succeeded in making a memorable, noteworthy presentation. I don't mean to assign high quality to that presentation--after all, Kim Kardashian has made memorable, noteworthy presentations, too. But in order to be successful as a business, one must have willing consumers. And our media business has millions of customers.<br /><br />Donna, you recently remarked that we, as people, often tend to find a target toward which we can point our blaming fingers, and I agree that we as a society do that far too often. In this case, I point the finger back at ourselves--the customers, the consumers, the "rhetoric-vores" who swallow virtually anything that is fed to us. And I'm guilty of that too, from time to time.<br /><br />Unfortunately, there seems to be no clear answer (or at least not one that we can define in a single blog post), but I did at least learn here that P.T. Barnum was mis-attributed that quote. :) I never knew that before.<br /><br />As always, thank you for the chance to discuss these ideas with you, Donna. I hope you're well.Paul M.noreply@blogger.com