Information Warfare and the Psychopathology of Partisanship

PROLOGUE:   "An Open Letter To Senator Al Franken"

For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, a couple whom I frequently visit tune their TV to Fox News Channel — sometimes 10, 15 or more hours every day.

I have, of course, voiced the obvious question. It’s striking to note the extent to which they can’t articulate, don’t know or won’t explain the real reasons for their preference. Perhaps it’s my ineffectiveness at sharing the true spirit of inquiry; but thus far, their responses have been mystifying at best, hostile at worst.

In the face of such a real-life mystery, my casual study of their attitudes and behavior has become a keen test of my powers of observation, deduction and analysis. As their friend, oftimes collaborator and sometime tenant, I’ve been in a position to ponder what Fox is doing, how it is seen from their vantage, and why it’s succeeding. Whether they’re typical of the overall audience of the Fox Infotainment Channel, I would not infer too broadly. But I’m sure that many people think and feel as they do; and in their example, therefore, I find tantalizing clues to deep-seated mechanisms in the human psyche.

Yes, here is a pair for whom the political and religious views expressed by Hannity, Beck, Huckabee, O’Reilly, Shepard Smith and company are embraced uncritically and without reservation. These are viewers for whom Fox is the agency of unvarnished truth, while every other network news source is biased — maybe even outright untrustworthy.

They are white, Anglo-Americans in their mid-70s, living in a rural village in central New York State. Their health is declining; the television set provides companionship more than the average person might require. It is often left unattended, with no one watching. Sometimes it broadcasts all night long, at decibel levels only the hard of hearing can safely withstand.

It’s possible that this is karmic payback for the malfeasance of my youth; but putting aside existential self-knowledge, I’m compelled to fathom what motivates their deliberate, self-inflicted cancellation of human intelligence.

It would be a mistake to dismiss this habit as evidence of senility. (Bumper sticker in the neighborhood: “I’m senile...and I vote!”) No, I consider them to be in full possession of their faculties; and to that extent, evidence of a phenomenon that ought to be taken seriously. I do have trouble being able to conceive their convoluted mentality; but they’re wonderful people, in many ways, and basically normal for American society. Nothing that would affect their spiritual resiliency, emotional maturity or mental agility can be ascribed explicitly to any organic disorder.

Yet, on careful questioning, I find that their thinking on a wide variety of issues demonstrates a confused muddle of contradictory ideas bound together by emotional logic.Their day-to-day lives uphold the character of ordinary functioning; but their larger worldview is not a rational construct.

It is precisely the extent to which they represent a common occurrence that I see larger significance in their example, not simply about the Fox Infotainment Channel, but touching social trends and political situations around the world.

I see Maoist re-education camps in China, erasing the memory of those who witnessed the massacre at Tiananmen Square. I see the re-election of Ahmadinejad in Iran. I see assassinations of prominent Russian journalists. I see ever-intensifying surveillance inscribing the lives of individuals into databases, and the struggles of bloggers in many nations to circumvent internet censorship. I see mothers and fathers in Pakistan, resisting the distribution of polio vaccine to evade what they believe is an American plot to sterilize Islamic children.

I see historical forces driving the evolution of consciousness and culture; and my two elderly friends, angry at Obama, amused by Bill O’Reilly, inspired by Sarah Palin. “The lady President,” they call her, firmly convinced she is next in line.

“At the apex of the process of globalization,” I wrote in the mid-1990s, “there is a fight for the control of information.” This, it seems to me, is a centuries-old, millennial culmination, reaching back into antiquity, with consequences still hundreds of years in the future: a paradigm for the interpretation of history. The gathering storm of information warfare has been heating up precipitously in recent generations, with the Cold War a major skirmish of the 20th Century: perhaps, a prelude of what we face; while in the current chapter, the clash of medieval thinking and modernism spurs religiously-sponsored insurgencies amid the complex challenges posed by new communications technologies.

Fox (and its owner, Rupert Murdoch) are players in this Armageddon of ideas; likewise, the battling among Republican and Democratic factions during the Obama Presidency takes meaning from this context.

It’s my nature to keep an eye on where we’re all going, in the long term struggle for freedom and the full realization of humankind’s potential. I count unprecedented multiplication of global institutions during the past century, impacting our species’ ecologization. I note variation and development in the progress of representative government worldwide: victories and defeats; new models emerging. But it’s also fascinating to study how the process is affecting individuals right now; and the effort toward understanding has immediate practical use, as I seek to bridge dialogue across a conceptual divide. Beyond the aim of preserving harmony with my friends, there’s also a question of how to respond to the movement they enlarge.

I’d like to summarize these insights under the heading of “The Psychopathology of Partisanship." But it strikes me as probable that titles containing six-syllable words may be overlooked in a world that admires grunting. Just to make sure, therefore (or here’s hoping, anyway) that someone besides me will read this, I’ll also address this as “An Open Letter To Senator Al Franken of Minnesota,” who has written a charming, forthright book on an aspect of this topic.

I’ve consulted your thoughtful book, Al. I wanted to see if Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right could tell me anything that I hadn’t figured out for myself.

I’d like to respond to a number of points that you’ve raised. You (and fourteen Harvard student assistants) have performed a valuable service of research and reportage. There might be more for me to comment than I can find room for in a few paragraphs.

I should acknowledge upfront a bit of common territory between us: my first step into the world of electoral politics, risking a tentative toe in the waters, was as an organizer and facilitator for the Wellstone Civic Dialogue Project (the legacy of Senator Paul Wellstone, whose seat you now hold) in Binghamton, New York in February 2004.

But before I get into anything, I have to explain that unlike you, I’m not a Democrat. And unlike our friend, Mr. Bill O’Reilly, who claims to be Independent (while according to your data, he’s been a lifelong Republican), I’ve been registered as an Independent voter (no party affiliation) in New York State for more than 30 years.

I do not subscribe to the viewpoints or rhetoric of either conservative or liberal doctrines. I take stands on issues; I support individual candidates; and I can see the wisdom of continuity or change of one party’s control of the White House or Congress. But these decisions are based on problem-solving, and they do not detract from my belief that the left-right dichotomy in American politics is a form of social and psychopathology that is responsible for tremendous amounts of destructive speech and behavior.

I think that in order to repair the dysfunctional consequence of ideological combat within our current system, we have to begin with the recognition that our fellow human beings are suffering from mental illness. I really don’t mean to sound flip or amusing. I’m certainly familiar with the pain and struggles of those who deal with genetic, traumatic and other physiologically-based cognitive impairments. But the corrosive spirit inflicted on our society through much political so-called debate is no less injurious. It is primarily a learned affect, an integrative disorder of the faculties of reason and emotion. For want of a better term, I call it “partisanship."

Now I don’t claim any special immunity from stupidity, or worse. But I’ve been working on becoming conscious for at least a couple of decades; and given the right circumstances, it might be something that I could teach to another person. I’m sufficiently aware of the human propensity to exercise the power of one’s hand in contradiction to our own biological and spiritual integrity to avoid a lot of the common pitfalls.

In other words, my credentials for formulating a treatment protocol to heal our fellow mortals from the psychopathology of partisanship are simply that I have the awareness to do so.

I have a hunch that you, Al (or someone reading this) might be able to help. I’m not discounting the fact that you’re a political partisan, and that your book is extremely biased against liars. But I think that you might be close to becoming sane. For example, in one chapter you passed judgment on yourself for lying, and you found it distasteful. That’s a very encouraging sign for the future of the human race.

Seriously, I think that I ought to write a book to outline my political philosophy, and explore a treatment protocol for deprogramming both left-wing and right-wing turkey burgers. I think I could get my act together well enough to fly on the lecture circuit, too. I’ve already been around a little bit, as teacher, poet-performer and campaign maven. But I do need to find a publisher, and maybe an agent. These are not things I’ve done real well at in my lifetime. It could be useful to have guidance and help from people who’re experienced in these areas.

And I have to admit, I’m in kind of a tight spot (what else is new). In 2007, I moved into a primitive hut in a wild, woodland setting — no electricity, no running water, cement slab floor. Harsh, rugged conditions; very beautiful in my eyes. My landlord — an Amish farmer, in the heart of a prosperous Amish community — wants to use this cabin for other purposes, so awhile back, he asked me to plan on moving somewhere else. I’ve been working about six months so far to create new living quarters in the loft of an 1850s barn; and with zero-degree weather rushing up on the calendar, I expect the carpentry is going to keep me occupied for some time longer.

So I don’t have a lot of opportunity for pursuing writing projects. I’m afraid that unless I can make some good connections with like-minded folks, this might just turn out to be another one of those wonderful ideas that I won’t be able to get very far with.

But I’d like to start here by expressing appreciation for the factual background that you provide about Fox Infotainment Channel, some of its players and personnel, the corporate family and so forth. I had not focused on these details behind current events. And your elucidation of the mechanism by which extreme characterizations play out in the court of public opinion — the so-called “echo chamber” — remains as valuable as when you first sketched this profile in 2003.

But you know, that reminds me of my lifelong admiration for the achievements of John D. Rockefeller. Among other things, I consider that the invention of the Standard Oil Company — the corporation known today as Exxon — was a great leap forward in human socio-economic organization. Rather than trying to control all the oil production in the world, Rockefeller built a distribution network with gears that meshed. Rather than pay exorbitant freight for transportation, he bought a railroad. Rather than pay markups on oil barrels, he bought a barrel factory. Despite the obvious benefit to consumers as he streamlined costs and undercut prices (accomplished without need for demeaning his own labor force), the competitive advantages resulting from these practices were deemed monopolistic, and the structure of his enterprise was dissolved by government fiat.

One wonders how much times have changed, and whether Rockefeller’s creativity would be rewarded today, instead of punished. Certainly, lines are now routinely crossed that allow collusion in the marketplace where an earlier generation might have protested. The principle behind Rockefeller’s approach is now widely emulated, if not precisely copied.

Although the commodity is communications content rather than oil, the interlocking infotainment enterprises of Rupert Murdoch comprise a structure that may well surpass the work of Rockefeller’s genius. No one, of course, owns the “echo chamber”: it is a relationship between extremist ideologues and mainstream media, the artful propagation of bald untruth and calculated dishonesty harmonizing with well-feigned outrage and self-righteous indignation to bend the focus and distort the message of credible journalism. But Murdoch has some wonderfully wicked gadgets: megaphones, amplifiers, wah-wah pedals and enough multi-tracking capability to run circles around Usain Bolt (crudely mixed metaphor, but you get the point).

I hope I’m not giving Murdoch undue credit. It requires talk radio, think tanks, corporate front organizations and pulpit proselytizers to seed the chamber and keep up the ricochet level. It takes billionaire misanthropists and crafty con men like Sun Myung Moon, who owns the Washington Times and United Press International, to confirm the orthodoxy of the willfully ignorant. But when it comes down to the reverberations in that hollow niche between the ears, Murdoch is a maestro of the Contraculture. Mogul Rupert owns over 130 English-language newspapers and dozens of magazines; and that's just for starters.  I don't mean to make him a bogeyman; and I don't honestly know the extent of his hands-on involvement in executive decision-making.  But from what I can see at short range, his power to appoint the editorial judgment of the Fox broadcasting networks and stations, 20th Century-Fox movie studio, HarperCollins publishing, and now (since your book appeared) the Wall Street Journal, enables him to twang the internal discord of people like my friends like playing a passive instrument.

Obviously, it wouldn’t work unless the product met a demand and matched expectations of appropriate quality. By the same token, however, it doesn’t mean Murdoch is pulling all the strings in America. Who is being affected? How is it done? What difference does it make? What’s the real extent of Murdoch’s reach, and the real meaning of his influence? Your book touches these questions briefly and casually; and while I think you’ve got good insight, as a partisan your attitude is dismissive and pejorative. I’d love to go more deeply sometime, with the mind of a cultural anthropologist. I’m not a complainer, by and large. I think it’s phenomenal what Murdoch is able to achieve within the free market of ideas by exploiting the fundamental weaknesses of democracy. My interest is to help correct the underlying problem, working to heal those weaknesses. I want to join the Armageddon of ideas — is that a book title? — by strengthening some competition.

For example, there’s a flawed, feeble notion floating around which suggests that the “echo chamber” is being poisoned by some sort of “vast right-wing conspiracy.” This is yet more serial exaggeration coming out of the Clinton camp. I mean, “vast”? What is “vast” here? If this is the best Clinton can do, he really needs to pick up his game.

Personally, I have no inherent bias against anything called “right wing,” and no assumed affinity for anything “liberal” or “left wing.” This terminology doesn’t go anywhere unless it’s preaching to the choir. As for “conspiracy,” the implication is that everyone involved is aware of what’s happening, which I don’t think is true about people caught up in a mob stampede. I’ve no doubt that Republican strategist Roger Ailes, who runs the Fox cable channel as a highly stimulating 24-hour infomercial, has a copy of both Lee Atwater’s playbook and Karl Rove’s banquet menu — serving up nice wedge issues, with a slice of this, a slice of that, to make a fine political buffet (or a loyal television audience). But at the end of the day, it sways no one to accuse the Republican Party of being a “conspiracy” to elect Republicans.

So you may have noticed that the argument gets very little traction. The words do not accurately describe, nor do justice to the diverse, dissembling synergy, the artful manipulations, the skillful misrepresentations, the crossover effects in popular culture and the augmentation of the power of an elite few who succeed at diverting the national interest to serve their own. Moreover, accusations of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” are disrespectful to the mass consumer of untruth, whose motives may be misguided, but not Machiavellian.

This is a key point. Among the professional propagandizers in your book, there are those who make a science of disingenuousness; but it would be a mistake to impute their glibness to everyone caught up in the operations of the “echo chamber.” I witness daily a flawed exercise of awareness by my two elderly friends, but I credit the “emotional logic” that they cling to as an expression of essential sincerity.

A “vast right-wing conspiracy” may seem real to describe the experience of someone who is a target of defamation, but the expression isn’t effective to counteract the underlying conditions of egocentricity and myopia. I approach the problem from a different starting point; and I recognize that those whose ears are deadened by the Contraculture may not even hear Clinton’s meta-statement that he’s confronted by tactics that he regards as illegitimate.

On that score, Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right takes on a very useful chore of exposing some of what goes on. I appreciate your contribution toward strengthening standards of integrity in journalism, Al. There’s much in your assessment to agree with and build upon.

I have to say in passing that I don’t think the right wing has a patent on illegitimate tactics; and I find intellectual dishonesty as rampant among so-called “progressives” as in any other segment of society. But maybe some intellectual dishonesty — like the reflexive action of emotional defensiveness by people who are threatened by a questioning attitude — is different from the calculating practices of infotainers like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and performance artists like Ann Coulter who use dishonesty as a tactic of expediency for self-aggrandizement.

This leads me roundabout to a core idea of “The Psychopathology of Partisanship.” I have a scale for evaluating the relative rationality of human consciousness, based on the degree of a person’s ability to absorb correction of factual inaccuracies. At the far left, an attitude of extreme judgmentality renders people essentially incapable of dialogue. At far right, excessive open-mindedness results in moral relativism and an inability to take a stand. The center (where I aim to gravitate) is in the spirit of inquiry: where the commitment to receiving and utilizing lessons outweighs the commitment to defending your illusions.

It is in sharing the spirit of inquiry that I believe we can be, at the same time, accurate observers of history and effective participants in history.

This is the quest that I invite others to participate in with me; and that I seek help with from someone who can grasp what I’m offering. Because, you know, I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it...

Oh, well.