Funny how that works.

[OnyxCollie]

47. Television, the drug of the Nation

One Nation under God
Has turned into
One Nation under the influence
Of one drug

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V., it satellite links
Our United States of unconciousness
Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
The methadone metronome pumping out
A 150 channels 24 hours a day
You can flip through all of them
And still there's nothing worth watching

T. V. Is the reason why less than ten percent of our
Nation reads books daily
Why most people think Central America
Means Kansas
Socialism means unamerican
And Apartheid is a new headache remedy

Absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us
It shapes our minds the most
Maybe the mother of our Nation
Should remind us
That we're sitting to close to. ..

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V. Is
The stomping ground for political candidates
Where bears in the woods
Are chased by Grecian Formula'd
Bald eagles

T. V. Is mechanized politic's
Remote control over the masses
Co-sponsered by environmentally safe gases
Watch for the pbs special

It's the perpetuation of the two party system
Where image takes precedence over wisdom
Where sound bite politics are served to
The fastfood culture

Where straight teeth in your mouth
Are more important than the words
That come out of it
Race baiting is the way to get selected
Willie Horton or
Will he not get elected on. ..

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V. Is it the reflector or the director?
Does it imitate us or do we imitate it
Because a child watches 1500 murders before he's
Twelve years old and we wonder how we've created
A Jason generation that learns to laugh
Rather than abhor the horror

T. V. Is the place where
Armchair generals and quarterbacks can
Experience first hand
The excitement of video warfare
As the theme song is sung in the background

Sugar sweet sitcoms
That leave us with a bad actor taste while
Pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars
You saw the video
You heard the soundtrack
Well now go buy the soft drink
Well, the only cola that I support
Would be a union C. O. L. A. (Cost of Living Allowance)
On Television.

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

Back again, "New and Improved",
We return to our irregularly programmed schedule
Hidden cleverly between heavy breasted
Beer and car commericals

Cnn espn abc tnt but mostly B. S.
Where oxymoronic language like
"virtually spotless" "fresh frozen"
"light yet filling" and "military intelligence"
Have become standard

T. V. Is the place where phrases are redefined
Like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"crude oil" on a beach to "mousse"
"Civilian death" to "collateral damages"
And being killed by your own Army
Is now called "friendly fire"

T. V. Is the place where the pursuit
Of happiness has become the pursuit of trivia
Where toothpaste and cars have become s** objects
Where imagination is sucked out of children
By a cathode ray nipple
T. V. Is the only wet nurse
That would create a cripple

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
On Television. ..

In the communal sphere, the preferences of the mass public are arbitrary and vague, shaped through the acquisition of information (Jost et al., 2003) from opinion leaders whose function is to attach idea-elements together (Converse, 1964).

As one progresses downward from elites to the mass public on a conceptual rationality scale, further examination reveals the majority of the population sampled are unable to express an understanding of the constraints affecting political parties and issues without being prompted by political elites, resulting in frequent instances of logical inconsistencies (Converse, 1964). Consequently, abstract concepts such as ideological principles give way to simple, concrete belief systems which revolve around family, work, etc. Furthermore, the majority of the population rely on group politics, i.e., their primary means of identifying parties is through the treatment they and other groups received from political parties.

This process of acquiring information from authoritative sources to satisfy preferences which include survival is described as laying the foundation for a belief system (Converse, 1964; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b as cited in Jost et al., 2003; McGuire, 1985, as cited in Jost et al., 2003). Converse (1964) and Kunda (1990, as cited in Jost et al., 2003) suggest that this belief system is regulated by multiple constraints. The constraints offer a probability that a specific attitude held in a belief system will result in certain other attitudes being held (Converse, 1964). These constraints are identified as logical, psychological, and social (Converse, 1964). Jost et al. (2003) further expand on the concept by describing these constraints as existential (fear, curiosity), epistemic (authoritarian, liberal), and ideological (group dominance, egalitarianism). According to Jost et al. (2003), belief systems fulfill psychological needs.

Within the constraints, belief systems provide a principled doctrine by which new information obtained is compared to prior associations in order to choose a course which provides the greatest utility (Jost et al., 2003). However, these belief systems do not operate in a vacuum; uncertain conditions and numerous variables can influence personal motivations by invoking emotional responses, leading to a reformulation of logic that while not syllogistically sound, is principled nonetheless (Jost et al., 2003).

According to Converse (1964) and Wooddy (1935), a majority of people fail to truly comprehend the “whys” and are dependent upon opinion leaders who hold their confidence for explanation. Confidence in opinion leaders is essential, as Kesckemeti (1950) makes clear: If the source of information is viewed as someone who is known and can be trusted, the audience will accept the information. If the source is unfamiliar, the audience will question the motivation. If the motivation appears only to inform, the information will be accepted. If the motivation is to express an opinion, the audience may choose to agree or disagree. If the motivation appears to be a hidden agenda, the audience will refuse to accept the information.

Previous research has questioned the nature of influences on the relationship between elites and the mass public (Schildkraut, 2002). Some studies demonstrate a convergence of opinion between elites and the mass public, although it is uncertain which group initiated the process. Other studies have suggested elite cues are integrated into mass opinion (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Zaller, 1992, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). Other studies demonstrate that elite movement follows public opinion (Monroe, 1979, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Page & Shapiro, 1983, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). Finally, some studies suggest a reciprocal relationship between elites and the mass public (Hill & Hinton-Andersson, 1995, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1983, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). While self-interest in the mass public is likely to shape opinions when costs and benefits are clear and political elites politicize self-interest (Sears & Funk, 1990, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002), costs and benefits are rarely clear, thus prohibiting the rational computation of alternative measures (Feldman, 1982, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Sniderman & Brody, 1977, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002).

Collective Identity Formation and the International State Author(s): Alexander Wendt Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 384-396

Perhaps the most fundamental explanation is that self-interest, even if not presocial, stems from the essential nature of states.

Second, states typically depend heavily on their societies for political survival, which may induce them to place societal interests before those of other states and treat the latter as instruments for realizing the former.

These two arguments come together in a third, which focuses on nationalism, that is, a sense of societal collective identity based on cultural, linguistic, or ethnic ties. Nationalism may be in part "primordial" and thus inherent to societies' self-conceptions as distinct groups. In addition, the dependence of states on their societies may be such that they cultivate nationalist sentiments in order to solidify their corporate identities vis-a-vis each other (Anderson 1983).

The SCOTUS decision in Bush v Gore ushered in the new autocracy.

Democratization and the Danger of War Author(s): Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder Reviewed work(s):Source: International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer, 1995), pp. 5-38

{W}e argue that threatened elites from the collapsing autocratic regime, many of whom have parochial interests in war and empire, use nationalist appeals to compete for mass allies with each other and with new elites. In these circumstances, the likelihood of war increases due to the interests of some of the elite groups, the effectiveness of their propaganda, and the incentive for weak leaders to resort to prestige strategies in foreign affairs in an attempt to enhance their authority over diverse constituencies. Further, we speculate that transitional regimes, including both democratizing and autocratizing states, share some common institutional weaknesses that make war more likely. At least in some cases, the link between autocratization and war reflects the success of a ruling elite in using nationalist formulas developed during the period of democratization to cloak itself in populist legitimacy, while dismantling the substance of democracy

~snip~

{P}ublic opinion often starts off highly averse to war. Rather, elites exploit their power in the imperfect institutions of partial democracies to create faits accomplish, control political agendas, and shape the content of information media in ways that promote belligerent pressure-group lobbies or upwellings of militancy in the populace as a whole.

Once this ideological connection between militant elites and their mass constituents is forged, the state may jettison electoral democracy while retaining nationalistic, populist rhetoric.

~snip~

As Samuel Huntington has put it, the typical problem of political development is the gap between high levels of political participation and weak integrative institutions to reconcile the multiplicity of contending claims.30 In newly democratizing states without strong parties, independent courts, a free press, and untainted electoral procedures, there is no reason to expect that mass politics will produce the same impact on foreign policy as it does in mature democracies. In all of the democratizing great powers, public inputs were shaped and aggregated in ways that differed from those of mature democracies.

Moreover, in all of these cases, the political press was to some degree bribed or censored by the government or had not yet institutionalized the objectivity, knowledge, and professionalism needed to create a full and fair public debate.35

As a result of these institutional deformations, ruling circles in these democratizing great powers were only haphazardly accountable to the electorate. Typically, elite groups reached out intermittently and selectively for mass support but were able to buffer themselves from systematic accountability through the ballot box.

As a consequence, public groups in all of these polities tended to organize as narrow pressure groups or single-issue lobbies,

These groups often worked outside the electoral system, making direct demands on public authorities, since the democratic path to power was rigged against them. This tendency toward direct action in the streets or in smoke-filled back rooms rather than through the ballot box is typical of what Huntington calls the "praetorian society," where pressures for participation are strong but institutions for effective participation are weak.3

{T}he military has suffered greatly in status and organizational cohesion from the opening of the political system.

it is striking that many of the groups with an interest in retarding democratization are also those with a parochial interest in war, military preparation, empire, and protectionism. This is not accidental. Most of the benefits of war, military preparations, imperial conquest, and protectionism-e.g., in career advancement or in protection from foreign economic competition-are disproportionately concentrated in specific groups.41 Any special interest group, including the military, that derives parochial benefits from a public policy has to feel wary about opening up its affairs to the scrutiny and veto of the average voter, who pays for subsidies to special interests. Whenever the costs of a program are distributed widely, but the benefits are concentrated in a few hands, democratization may put the program at risk.

Silverstein, B. (1987). Toward a science of propaganda. Political Psychology (8)1. 49-59.

Jacques Ellul (1973) calls the type of propaganda designed to incite revolution or to undermine existing regimes the "propaganda of agitation." Ellul also describes another type which he believes to be much more important than agitation propaganda for people living in developed nations. Every modern social system uses what Ellul calls the "propaganda of integration" to promote acceptance and support among its citizens for that system.

Integration propaganda is important because no modern society can function for long without at least the implicit support of most of its citizens. Integration propaganda is promulgated not in pamphlets put out by small groups of subversives or in broadcasts made by foreign powers, but in the main channels of communication - newspapers, television, movies, textbooks, political speeches etc.-produced by some of the most influential, powerful, and respected people in a society. It is therefore difficult to recognize despite (or perhaps because of) its omnipresence, particularly because it is based upon ideals and biases that are accepted by most members of the society.

It is important here to point out an assumption that may be disputed by some psychologists that underlies all propaganda analysis: That beliefs, attitudes, and cognitions play a crucial role in the determination of political opinions and behavior. Propaganda researchers should participate in determining the exact role played by ideas in politics, but few scholars would become actively involved in propaganda analysis if they did not believe that what people read, hear, see, and think is an important determinant of their political actions.

Do personality variables or styles of cognitive processing affect susceptibility to propaganda? Ellul (1973) claims that contrary to popular belief, as a result of their increased exposure to propaganda, highly educated, well-informed citizens of modern societies are more, not less, open to propaganda than are people who receive less information.

We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot.

Terrorists and Democrats: Individual Reactions to International Attacks

Alice F. Healy; Joshua M. Hoffman; Francis A. Beer; Lyle E. Bourne, Jr.
Political Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 3, Special Issue: 9/11 and Its Aftermath: Perspectives from Political Psychology. (Sep., 2002), pp. 439-467.

Many approaches in political psychology are based on the assumption of rational choice by decision-makers (McGraw, 2000). Indeed, in classical international relations theory, decision-making is conceived as rational behavior. Decisions are made on the basis of all available information with the aim to achieve optimal results for the decision-maker or his or her country. But, psychologically, it is unlikely that individuals can process or even access all of the information they need to make a fully rational decision in every circumstance (McGraw, 2000).

Rather, they make decisions that are heuristically good enough and lead to reasonable or acceptable outcomes. Simon (1956) labeled this kind of decision-making as bounded rationality and described the results as "satisficing." His argument was that decision-making, even by experts, is typically influenced by nonrational cognitive processes.

Rational choice models are not fully consistent with contemporary findings in cognitive psychology, in which nonrational choice processes are often observed (see, e.g., Kahneman & Tversky, 1973; McGraw, 2000). McGraw thinks that political psychologists need to be wary of claims of compatibility of rational choice with cognitive psychological models. Psychological factors might play a more important role in international relations than has generally been acknowledged. Thus, whenever a political situation involves choice, there may be nonrational as well as rational cognitive processes involved. When individuals are required to choose among various alternatives for international actions, nonrational factors
might play an influential role.

Image theory is an example of a psychological nonrational choice model that has been applied to international relations by Herrmann, Voss, Schooler, and Ciarrochi (1997; see also Sylvan & Voss, 1998, for related discussions). Image theory asserts that decision-makers rely on an accumulation of mental representations (or images) acquired from previous experience to interpret an immediate situation and to decide on a course of action. For example, politicians are likely to have images that apply to other countries, categorizing them as allies, enemies, colonies, or other types (Voss, Kennet, Wiley, & Schooler, 1992), and the image of a particular country functions as a schema to guide decisions about how to react to an immediate situation involving that country. Decisions will differ according to whether the image is that of an ally, enemy, or colony (Herrmann et al., 1997).

Changing Minds: Political Arguments and Political Persuasion
Michael D. Cobb; James H. Kuklinski
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 1. (Jan., 1997), pp. 88-121.

When politicians debate policy, their goal is to persuade the public that their position is the right one. Persuasion in turn requires effective argument, a reality that politicians do not take lightly. They choose arguments strategically, on the basis of assumptions about what will and will not work. Sometimes the arguments prove effective, other times they do not. In short, the choice of political argument often determines which side wins and which loses. And this is normally true whether the issue itself, in Carmines and Stimson's terms, is hard or easy.

For purposes here, hard arguments tend to be long and complex, and focus primarily on the antecedents of a proposal. Because X and Y conditions exist, Z will occur. Hard arguments, in other words, begin with a set of existing conditions and show logically that a proposal is or is not desirable. Comprehending hard arguments takes considerable mental work, cognitively requiring multiple processing steps. Finally, hard arguments elicit relatively little effect. Largely factual and argumentative in content, they contain little to which an individual can viscerally react.

Easy arguments represent the flip side of hard arguments. Short, simple, and symbolic, they conjure up readily accessible images. They also elicit more effect than hard arguments. Whereas hard arguments focus on antecedents, easy arguments focus primarily on the consequences of a proposal. If X is adopted, Y will be the consequence. Easy arguments eschew explanations of why something will happen. Rather than take the form, "You will lose your job if NAFTA passes because. . . ," they take the abbreviated and more simplistic form, "You will lose your job if NAFTA passes." It takes little mental effort to absorb an easy argument: hear it, take it at face value, and incorporate it into your prior beliefs.

Unable to attend to and comprehend all the stimuli that come their way, people routinely use heuristics (for an overview, see Fiske and Taylor 1991). Whether these heuristics play an especially dominant role in the evaluation of politics, a domain in which the lack of interest and knowledge looms large, is unclear. Nor is it certain that people's use of informational shortcuts always leads to the right judgment (Kuklinski and Hurley 1994). But there can be no doubt that people commonly employ heuristics to make sense of a complex and tumultuous political environment (Popkin 1991; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Economist Anthony Downs argued 40 years ago (1957) that rational citizens should do nothing else.

Suppose Downs and an ever burgeoning literature in political psychology are right. Then what kind of heuristic might people use when evaluating a political argument, and what does its use imply for the relative effectiveness of hard and easy arguments? An increasingly influential body of literature points to emotion7 Especially relevant here, Schwarz and Clore (1983, 1988; Schwarz 1990; also see Lazarus 1966, 1982; Marcus et al. 1995) demonstrate that people routinely use their feelings as information. When confronted with a social event or situation, they ask themselves, "How do I feel?" If they answer "good," they will positively evaluate the event or situation. Conversely, feeling "bad-sad, angry, afraid-leads to a negative evaluation. In a dramatic demonstration of how emotion and feelings dominate decision making, neurologist Antonio Damasio (1994) reports that brain-damaged patients who cannot ascertain how they feel often fail to reason properly.

Iyengar, S. (1987). Television news and citizen’s explanations of national affairs.
The American Political Science Review, 81(3), 815-832.

Citizens are only fleetingly acquainted with current events and very few utilize ideological precepts to organize their political beliefs (for a review of research, see Kinder and Sears 1985). The low level of political knowledge and the absence of ideological reasoning has lent credence to charges that popular control of government is illusory (with respect to U.S. public opinion, for example, see Schumpeter 1950; Toqueville 1954).

~snip~

Explanation is an essential ingredient of human knowledge. To explain events or outcomes is to understand them: to transform the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of today's world into orderly and meaningful patterns. Psychological research has demonstrated that causal relationships feature prominently in individuals' perceptions of social phenomena (Nisbett and Ross 1980; Weiner 1985). In fact, causal thinking is so ingrained in the human psyche that we even invent causation where none exists, as in purely random or chance events. (see Langer 1975; Wortman 1976).

Explanatory knowledge is important to political thinking for two reasons. First, answers to causal questions abound in popular culture, making the task of explanation relatively inexpensive. One need not devour the pages of the Wall Street Journal or study macroeconomics to "know" why there is chronic unemployment. Second and more important, explanatory knowledge is connotative knowledge. To "know" that unemployment occurs because of motivational deficiencies on the part of the unemployed is relevant to our attitudes toward the unemployed and our policy preferences regarding unemployment. In other words, explanatory knowledge is usable knowledge. Simple factual knowledge, on the other hand (e.g., the current rate of unemployment), does not so readily imply political attitudes and preferences. It is not surprising, then, that opinions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors in a multitude of domains are organized around beliefs about causation (for illustrative research, see Schneider, Hastorf, and Ellsworth 1979, chap. 2). In fact, causal attributions exert such a powerful hold on behavior that "misattribution" techniques have proven effective in treating behavior disorders (see Fiske and Taylor 1984, 36-39), in inducing "prosocial" behaviors (see Schneider, Hastorf, and Ellsworth 1979, 93-95), and even in strengthening the general sense of psychological well-being (see Langer and Rodin 1976).