this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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This is what 35 years of right-wing talk radio turning any cultural event into a political crusade has gotten us. The right wing echo chamber has brain-poisoned so many Americans, that they no longer have any non-political schemata for interpersonal interaction on any topic.
Want to talk about how to keep the Internet fast and secure? That's political now.
Want to talk about the science behind the causes of climate change? That's political now.
Want to talk about making anyone's life better in any material way, other than a blood-sucking c-suite executive? That's political now.
Want to talk about medicine? Oh you betcha that's political now.
Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, and Fox News have caused this. And I have no problem calling them out for it. Think saying-so is "political?" Screw off. I don't care if your politics get in the way of everything that's interesting to discuss. Deal with it, or move to Saudi Arabia where conservatives would be happiest.
The idea that something that affects society can be nonpolitical is just your bias towards the status quo.
Everything was always political, and the status quo has always depended on hordes of lumpen trained to identify with their own oppressors over their own interests.
Before there were networks of right-wing radio and websites distributing right-wing talking points, they just used TV, newspapers, mailing lists, posters, etc. The effect was still 100 million Americans cheering when the national guard shot students protesting against the state sending their friends to die while participating in atrocities in Vietnam.
Even gardening is political; the notion that you should only plant grass and ornamental plants, mow your lawn once a week, and any deviation was a flaw was popularized and enforced by William Levitt to keep people from having too much time to read and become communists.
Similar sentiments spring up after the civil war regarding edible gardening and use of fruiting trees in urban planning, for fear that black people will live off foraging instead of working.
People that act like the media landscape was better or people more informed overall when everyone got their news from the same big 3-4 networks and 2-3 newspapers BLOW MY FUCKING MIND. Like, please read Manufacturing Consent once.
This take that things only got "political" when conservative talk radio got popular...I honestly can't.
Right, and to some people of a certain temperament, being aware of, and concerned about a vast range of entirely different issues, all of which can be engaged with on a number of levels that build on your knowledge and understanding, all of that is just an "echo chamber".
The echo chamber argument doesn't account for the fact that people can have shared fundamental values and nevertheless have constructive valuable informative conversations that engage in nuanced analysis. Being concerned about climate change, for instance, you can have all kinds of productive conversations about new research showing how hot September was, or how to make cities more walkable, or any number of things, and those are valuable conversations where describing them as echo chambers is silly. They're actually good conversations where we gain something from having them. If your primary test of a community is whether it does or doesn't have echo chambers, it doesn't have meaningful things to say about cases like this.