This subcategory of the blog is a language forum for figuring out how to convince our citizens to start talking to each other again. We are doomed if we continue harboring this sort of disunity in our community. Our political system was set up to deal with the inevitable conflicts that arise, but that has stopped working. The reasons for this are far too complex for one single approach to work. We need to resolve this on several fronts and an important part of that is communication.

The blog icon which identifies this subcategory was chosen because paintings convey a great deal of information. “Scholar Sharpening His Quill,” by Gerrit Dou, was painted in 1633. When I was a boy, my mother taught me how to take a large feather, sharpen it into a quill pen, then do calligraphy with it. Until I became a rotten teenage boy, I spent a lot of time practicing those skills.

The scholar in this painting does not seem to be a person of public action. We can imagine that he has dedicated himself to finding exact words, to explain enigmatic things, in a style that is both beautiful and enduring. The world beyond his quiet study was probably blighted by war and famine.

This column has nothing to do with scholasticism. The intention of Unify the United States is to focus on best practices for presenting difficult subjects to a reluctant public. That would involve combining specialist knowledge and common sense into memorable phrases.

Spirited Public Dialog

When we look at big media today, we see the blue-bubble and the red-bubble. Those two world views are impossible to reconcile. We need to rebuild those bridges. Spirited public dialog is absolutely essential for a healthy democracy. If debate is impossible, democracy is impossible.

Rivalries are the norm with sports teams. Sports are healthy channels for the human need to compete. You choose your team and then cheer them on.

Politics is not a sport. It is a civic responsibility. We have a nation to protect and if there is to be competition then that should be with other nations. Something went wrong and America started competing against itself. We are destroying ourselves from within and there is no referee with a whistle and flag.

This Unify US blog is intended to focus on How to convince the public to follow the guidelines of democracy. Core values are being eroded on too many fronts. Short term advantage seems to be the motivating factor. I suppose one way of looking at this challenge is the harmful words of Propaganda must be challenged by UnPropaganda. Not an easy task, but necessary.

What Is Necessary

Let me create an artificial talking point to illustrate these challenges.

We have three characters. Lefti is a radical socialist politico wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Beardo is a foaming at the mouth right winger holding an assault rifle. Qwakky is a rabid conspiracy fanatic with a crazed look in his eyes. All three are prone to fits of rage.

Do we accept them as part of our blog? Your first reaction might be no. On the other hand, in the name of shared responsibility, we need to take a closer look at what is necessary.

The standards we need to uphold are these. Participants must agree to a dialog, avoid trolling, and have something worth saying. Opposing views are welcome as long as they follow the guidelines. Differing opinions need to be shared in public. We are not yet ready to talk about the art of compromise.

If you were to sit down and have serious conversations with Lefti and Beardo (separately of course) you would discover that their agitated views are actually based on well thought out positions about how our country should be run.

Lefti and Beardo are recognizable as extremes of the legitimate political spectrum. If blame is to be assigned, that is because our voting system favors extremists, while abandoning those who have ordinary views. It is necessary to include as many legitimate points of view as possible. There are dangers if we include the wrong people. Not everybody plays nice in the sandbox.

As George Washington said in 1796, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge [which is] natural to party dissension, … is itself a frightful despotism.”

An Entirely Different Spectrum

Qwakky is a member of an entirely different spectrum. Despotism, fueled by a hazardous alternate reality, has found a home in his heart.

Government relies on two fundamentals to be effective. When opposing sides sit down at the negotiating table they need to bargain in good faith. Evaluating their disagreements must be established by examining fact-based evidence.

Qwakky ain’t got no good faith and he don’t believe in no facts.

There will always be citizens whose grasp of reality is a bit flaky. That’s one of the reasons our founders put a majoritarian political system in place. In theory, large numbers of people should smooth out what might be called the “flaky citizens” effect.

In today’s world that no longer holds true.

When I was much younger the leaders of the red team deliberately distanced themselves from the flakes. During my middle years those leaders gave the flakes a place at the table. Today the inmates have taken over both of the political party asylums. Both the blue-team and the red-team have betrayed our system. Political parties were excluded from our Constitution for excellent reasons. Maybe there was a time when two political parties served some useful purpose in America, but I see little evidence of that today.

Today we have four sides to every story. Lefti wants bigger government for everybody. Beardo wants less government for everything. Qwakky will do anything to get a jump in ratings. The rest of us just want to lead normal lives.

Law, Politics and Custom

Democracy by entertainment value is not what the founders had in mind. Unfortunately, that’s what we’re stuck with today. Could this be the source of disunity in our community?

The good old days had something good and something bad. Community standards were strong and that’s good. Community standards were also extremely narrow and any attempt to alter the existing system erupted into trench warfare. One side would say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The other side would say, but it is broken so we must fix it. We have failed to resolve those issues.

Enter the internet. During the 1990s this was a cool new toy.

Civilization has established ways of dealing with conflict. There is law, politics and custom. None of those things ended conflict but they enclosed rivalries within well-established channels. The internet upset that balance in ways we didn’t see coming.

These days people live inside their red-bubble or their blue-bubble. That has always been the case, but the internet amplified certain undesirable traits. For instance, in the good old days your family would subscribe to either the Republican newspaper or the Democratic newspaper. Your news of choice would be delivered to your front porch by some kid on a bicycle.

A newspaper costs a lot of money to produce. Subscriptions don’t cover those costs, so advertisements are sold. Local advertisers follow local community standards. There was a predictable momentum about what one or the other of the local papers would say about any given subject. It was a stable system.

Not so the internet. Anybody can say anything. That gets people riled up.

Something Missing

Unexpectedly, this led to an explosion of lifestyle statements that had previously been kept under the radar. A local newspaper would not touch many of those subjects (with a standard list of lurid exceptions). On the internet everything is out there in full view. Some people felt empowered when they realized they weren’t the only ones harboring peculiar thoughts.

That’s when the Qwakkies started showing up. At first their numbers were so small that no one was alarmed. It was kind of funny, actually. We would laugh at them. What a quaint little alternate reality they have. Ha ha ha.

Then we started hearing disturbing stories. Somebody’s father used to be a regular guy. Then he got caught up in these paranoid conspiracy theories on the internet. These days nobody can talk to him anymore. That’s sad.

There must have been something missing in his life and this conspiracy nonsense filled that void. If dad could swing to extremes in one direction, then we would like to hope that we will eventually be able to talk him into coming back to us.

What caught us by surprise is that the Quakkies quickly became this vast mass movement. Normal political discourse got shoved aside. It has now become a national tragedy. Conspiracy theories have a powerful grip on far too many of our otherwise decent citizens.

It is really frightening when we face the surreal fact that the Qwakkies are almost in control of all the levers of government power here in America. One small step and the prize will be theirs.

Smugly Entertaining and Highly Addictive

Call me old fashioned but I have a strong preference for reality over alternate reality. To be honest, I never thought discussions about democracy would ever come to this, but here we are.

Apparently, this alternative universe is both smugly entertaining and highly addictive. The dull mechanisms of genuine democracy are boring. Have we become a people who will no longer tolerate boring?

In addition to Lefti, Beardo, and Qwakky there are people in the middle. In theory they should be the majority. Why are we no longer the majority? I do not understand!

Perhaps this is ridiculously naive, but I can’t help thinking that if We the People figured out a way to talk to each other directly – instead of through the internet bubble – then social normality actually has a chance of becoming a regular part of our lives again.

If any of you readers have success stories about bringing someone back from the brink, then let us know. We’ll keep trying things until we find something that works. What we need is a national narrative that binds together a responsible majority.

We may never convince Qwakky to join us in the real world, but it is mission critical to bridge the gap between good citizens who happen to have different opinions.

© Neil Woodhall – all rights reserved
© Gomonish Entertainment
https://neilwoodhall.com
neilwoodhall60@gmail.com