You know, sometimes an old man’s ideas get bounced around until they need to be expressed, even though the old man knows they’re off the wall.
Being an old man, I have plenty of strange thoughts in my life, some of which seem to have enough merit to allow them to seep to the top, requiring open expression. I am not suggesting that these ideas have a place in today’s world, but they do seem to have a place in reflecting on the world we live in today.
I have expressed my opinion about feelings vs. common sense several times over the last three years, but I never examined how we changed from applying common sense to a problem to letting emotion take center stage in problem solving. It is a question that has interested me for a long time.
There are several reasons for this change, to come to an understanding that people’s feelings must be taken into account when challenged with a social problem, that it is necessary to understand minority groups’ side of an issue, that we become a more compassionate people , that we mature as a society, etc.
All of these things are true and have moved us towards a more “fair society”, but does it really explain why we have become the above?
After diving into this transformation, I’m left with a nagging idea that it’s more complicated than it seems. Sure, we’re bringing minorities into the fold like never before, we’ve become more compassionate, and we’re maturing as a society, but is that the underlying reason we’ve changed?
I keep thinking we could be overlooking something; what it is has been bugging me for a while. I know that, like the unified theory of physics, there is an answer out there that has yet to be formulated.
The more I thought about this transformation, the more I kept coming back to the initial question: What underlying event kick-started the way we approach societal problems?
I’ve talked about emotion before, and the more I thought about the injection of emotion into the body politic, the more it became apparent that emotion seeped into our political consciousness around the same time that another transformation was taking place in politics.
The second transformation was twofold, the rise of civil rights advocates entering politics and the feminist movement. These two transformed politics like no other event.
In 1964 there were two women in the US Senate and 12 in the House of Representatives; today there are 25 female senators and 125 representatives in Congress. The number of women in the Senate grew by six times; and the women of the house increased tenfold. Not only did women’s numbers in Congress increase, but they also shot up and outnumbered state, county and local offices.
In 1964, there were no women on the US Supreme Court; today there are four; almost half of the course. Again, the number of women in the justice system has increased since 1964.
What could that mean? This is what led me to investigate the connection between society moving from common sense approaches to problems, to the rise of emotions while solving societal problems.
Could the rise of feminist contributions to society also have raised the specter of emotion replacing common sense? I don’t believe for a second that this is a unifying theory that explains the fundamental shift in the way we approach problem solving, but it could be a factor. None of this is meant to diminish how important women in the political arena have become during my lifetime.
There are many other factors that have moved us away from common sense; minorities demanding a bigger share of the pie, fair hiring practices, recognition that there were mistakes in the way we treated people outside the white majority, unfair housing conditions, birth control pills, etc.
There is no doubt that there were many places that needed to be improved to make society fairer for all citizens. And I do not mean to suggest that because women have a greater influence in the body politic that they are responsible for the fundamental change we are witnessing.
Still, it is an exciting thought that the shift from common sense to emotion has changed the way our politics are conducted, which perhaps, with the evolution of the makeup of the political landscape, has led to the changes taking place in government ?
I know there will be a lot of pushback to suggest, even in a direct way, that the change from pragmatic, common sense ways of dealing with problems to a place where emotions are more important than what is necessary when solving problems. problems.
As I said at the outset, I am an old man who sometimes has strange ideas. Some of these ideas may have value if viewed without the lens of ideology. With that in mind, I’ve offered this particular, strange observation.
MEDIA AND POLITICS
I have also often thought that one of the real changes in our politics has been the unholy relationship of the media to politics. This applies to both sides.
Ever since the media stopped reporting the news and started taking sides, and with the rise of cable news, we’ve been put in our separate trenches, listening only to our own echo chamber.
The idea that the other guy might have a good idea, an argument, an attitude or a desire to improve the country can never be accepted because it didn’t materialize on our own part.
Both parties have great ideas to make us a stronger, healthier, wealthier, fairer and happier people, but if one side offers their vision, the other side immediately attacks the ideas only because they can’t give the opposition any credit.
What happened to putting the country first? Neither side nor the media can admit that something is a good idea or deal just because those ideas came from the other side. It amazes me when I see the different news outlets and how they treat the other guys. There are times when I watch the same speech by a party’s candidate and see how the media twists that speech and edits it to fit their narrative of the speech and who gave it. Never in my life have I seen such a twisted media. I believe that the media has lost all credibility with the way they refuse to present the news in a straightforward, non-biased manner.
Finally, thank God, why can’t the politicians, media, entertainment, special interest groups that cause division among us just stop the madness and accept that we all live in the same country and if we can’t put aside all that pettiness , that divides us, how do they expect us to believe any of them, or why should we?
BERNARD LESLIE is a beekeeping expert who lives next to Kentucky Lake in the northeast corner of Henry County. His email address is bleslie0515@gmail.com.