Sign of the Times
When I turned the page on my Mary Engelbreit wall calendar to November, I laughed out loud at this picture. I called my husband to come look.
The picture not only struck me as funny, but also timely.
People tend to want signs.
Is this a sign that it’s the right time to buy/sell a house? Right time to start a family? Sign that I should invest in the stock market? Sign that I should get out of the stock market? Buy or sell a car? Big or small decisions, we like some kind of assurance.
Who should I vote for? A sign might help. Or not.
While it troubles me to hear Christians try to interpret what’s happening in the world as a sign of the “End Time,” Jesus spelled it out. No one knows. No one will know. When it happens, you and I will know then.
Though Jesus did respond to the question his disciples asked about end times in Matthew 24, at another time He had said to the religious leaders who opposed Him, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign!”
So which is it? Signs or no signs?
Media Microphones in Our Age
On both sides of the 2024 Presidential election, people seem to believe the outcome is a sign.
In our form of government, the majority voted to elect Donald J. Trump to a second term as the 45th and 47th President of the United States.
His opponents feel this is a sign of doom.
His supporters believe this is a sign of hope.
And if you think about it, had the outcome been reversed, the same reactions would result. And the news outlet stories would flip too.
Only why do people feel so strongly about these political opponents as portrayed by the media? Are those individuals as bad for the country as some say? Are they as good for the country as others want to believe?
Whose voices speak into the public microphones? Are talking heads as impartial as they want viewers to think? How is even a social media opinion influential or persuasive?
“A man who has lived in many place is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”
Who controls the press and microphones of our age?
cataract––clouding of the lens of the eye, making vision opaque
The Loss of Trust
Well over a year ago, maybe two, I stopped watching the televised national news. Before that time, and for years, I couldn’t believe my educated children did not watch the national news. I challenged their omission of something I thought indispensable.
A little distance and perspective shed light on what I thought essential until what? Maybe after 2020, I began to sense a shift. Trust began to erode.
My husband and I had begun to notice that all three major networks aired the same stories. It looked like they all received the same news feed and as if some wizard behind the curtain decided what the viewing audience should see. Instead of competition for viewers, the news business divided the pie because it was all the same pie.
Museum in Washington, D.C.
Around the same time, I started to question whether as human beings you and I are emotionally equipped to carry burdens that lie far beyond the scope of our daily lives. The immediacy of daily life has its own problems, priorities, and demands.
Crisis circumstances somewhere in the world would change each week, if not every day, and what seemed like the most important thing in the entire world one day simply disappeared into a faded and forgotten background.
We live in an anxious generation. What should I worry about today? The news will tell me.
Watching the news was making me sick.
Watching the news made me feel as if I ought to bear the weight of the world’s problems even if I couldn’t do anything about whatever the news reported. Watching the news kept me awake at night.
Agitated, over-stimulated, fueling divisions, what I saw and heard made me cautious about who I could talk to or what I could say. Incited by controversy, I finally realized that the media was using me and people like me to sell their dog food and prescription drugs––along with their ideas.
That’s when I began to filter broadcasts, paying attention to who and what ideas were aired to influence my thinking.
While the media has always influenced people’s thinking and buying habits for their own interests, my “fast'“ from watching the news heightened my sensitivity to media methods.
You and I need to know who “they” are before establishing trust in what they say. As only one person among other anonymous viewers calculated and counted for sales of commercials, it dawned on me I was their product and source of revenue.
If people like me don’t buy what they are selling, they won’t have a job.
Who Do You Trust?
“The Legacy Media” can no longer be trusted to report impartial information. The current media giants works to shape and reshape information, shoehorn into Cinderella’s shoe a step-sister’s foot.
News anchor Walter Cronkite, known during the 1960s and 1970s as “the most trusted man in America,” haltingly and with deep emotion announced to the nation the assassination of President Kennedy. Somewhere between Walter Cronkite and Rush Limbaugh, a self-professed entertainer, the news transmogrified into an entertainment cycle using propaganda to promote people, products, and agendas.
From my own limited view of history, this particular news broadcast by Walter Cronkite (1 minute, 50 seconds to watch) marked a watershed moment. At that time, all three networks had trusted anchors who informed viewers what essentially affected most, if not every, American.
America’s 35th President had been shot; he died minutes later; the entire nation staggered under the weight of collective grief.
The end of the innocence. [1]
Was this a sign?
Quote by President Ronald Reagan, displayed in “Nuseum,” Washington, D.C.
Recognize Propaganda and Know How It’s Used
My high school Civics class taught me about propaganda.
Propaganda is a tool used to persuade people to buy or believe something.
propaganda––information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause or product
Typically, propaganda appeals to emotion over reason.
Seven techniques are used to claim as fact opinions that can be easily absorbed by a majority of people.
Name-calling––“Decision 2024” filled the airwaves with insults aimed at a person’s character or failures. Stereotypes and caricatures used to demean or belittle.
Glittering Generalities––takes empty words and makes ideas sound better than they are, exaggerating promises
Transfer––creating an image by association with some positive emblem
Testimonial––endorsements by celebrities or well-known persons who validate the candidate’s qualities
Plain-folk––seeks to identify with “real people,” ordinary people
Card-stacking––emphasizes positive qualities while minimizing or dismissing weaknesses
Bandwagon––Suggests everyone is doing this or believes this; you don’t want to be left out; get on board; appeals to FOMO (fear of missing out)
The same 7 methods I learned in school are still used strategically and/or insidiously, especially during election cycles.
Did you recognize any of these techniques before or after the election?
“Nuseum” in Washington, D.C. no longer exists. One critic “argued that most of the U.S. news media is controlled by businesses who shut out stories that would counter their interests.”
Sorting Beans from Rocks
If you have ever had to sort dry beans before cooking, you know there are rocks in with the beans. Beans are grown in dirt, harvested at ground level, packaged in factories.
My job growing up was to sort the beans from the rocks. I wanted to believe that the beans would be just fine right out of the bag, but since it only takes one pea-sized rock to break a tooth, my mother expected me to take that assignment seriously.
Your assignment and mine: Identify my own accepted biases and prejudice, especially when reading or listening to the news. Consider the source.
Then, recognize biases and objectives others may have and methods employed to persuade you to believe and act on those same beliefs.
Be alert to methods of propaganda packaging.
Sort out ideas to soak. Let these simmer. Cook, then season and eat.
Little by little you and I are fed and shaped by the ideas we assimilate.
No need for a sign. You can think for yourself.
[1] Before November 22, I will post about the Kennedy Assassination two eyewitness accounts.
*Further details about propaganda are available online.
“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.”