By Perry Willis
Words: 899
A slightly different version of this article was recently published at Agenda Setters by Downsize DC.
In this article...
Are we psychologically drawn to conflict and drama?
Is there a connection between politics and the psychology of entertainment?
Do the same things that entertain you also cause apathy, depression, and despair?
What is the Conflict Machine, and are you a mere cog in its mechanism?
Blood drenched drama
We all hate murder and violence. But what would happen to our sources of entertainment if there were no murder and violence? Would we have mystery novels, crime dramas, or serial killer documentaries? What about Breaking Bad, Ozark, GoodFellas, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, or Saving Private Ryan?
Even entertainment that doesn't deal with mayhem still deals with bad bosses, bad spouses, and bad days at the office. All fiction, written or filmed, depends upon things that we don't want to experience in our daily lives.
Then why do we so crave having those kinds of experiences vicariously during our leisure time?
This is a fascinating quirk of human psychology.
Would we feel impoverished if we lost all that conflict-based art, but also lost all the violence, death, and stress that inspires the art? It's a hard question. The fact is...
We are psychologically drawn to conflict and drama
This is true not only for fictional forms of entertainment, but also for sports and POLITICS.
We may decry the stress inherent to politics, but we are constantly attracted to it and swept up in it. We emote and argue and strive to defeat each other. We do it with great gusto. And yet...
Political strife is also the cause of apathy, depression, and despair
Our attraction to conflict and drama is a double-edged sword. We love it, and we hate it.
The love aspect of our reaction to political strife makes us argue for our preferred parties, candidates, and policies. It also attracts us to focus on the current crisis or scandal of the moment. These reactions enslave us to Media Agenda Setting and to partisan tribalism.
But our hatred for politics can also drive us to despair. It's common for people to feel like political outcomes will always be bad, so they give up trying to change anything. Paul Simon expressed it well in the song Mrs. Robinson...
"Laugh about it, shout about it, when you have to choose, anyway you look at it you lose."
Perhaps this is why our participation in politics ends up taking a highly vicarious form, just like our consumption of conflict-based entertainment.
When we watch a movie or TV drama we feel all the emotions of the characters, but those emotions of the moment have little lasting impact. Everything is at arm's length.
And when it comes to politics we complain, whine, and moan - we shout, we cry, we complain, and we even hate. But all of this is, to quote Shakespeare, "sound and fury signifying nothing." It's all a simulation - vicarious and ephemeral. It expends energy but produces no lasting result!
In addition...
Conflict-driven entertainment and politics are both forms of emotional manipulation
Writers, actors, and directors use words and images to evoke emotions, moving us from point to point through the story they want to tell.
The media and the politicians likewise use words and images to evoke emotions they can exploit to control and channel our behavior.
The media and the politicians are both in the drama business, just like the artists in Hollywood.
Indeed, the three groups - Hollywood, The Media, and politicians - collaborate and compete with each other to concoct the storylines that will best manipulate us to serve their purpose. Jim Babka has an appropriate name for this media/political complex. He calls it...
The Conflict Machine
The Romans used bread and circuses to enthrall the masses. Today the circuses are provided by Hollywood, the politicians, and the mainstream media. The modern process can be summed up in a simple paragraph...
Distract the masses with conflicts that make them rage and hate and fear until they reach the point of exhaustion, after which they will feel depressed and apathetic, leaving us (Hollywood, The Media, politicians) to do whatever we please.
This is what the Conflict Machine does.
What's the cure for Conflict Machine drama
I suggest three things...
Exit the Conflict Machine. Don't be a cog in its wheels. Don't let the media or the politicians set your agenda.
Set your own agenda. Decide which issues are most important, independent of any media coverage. Focus your learning and your conversations on those issues.
Don't be depressed by all the bad news. Resist apathy by being alert to good news.
Bonus idea: Meditate on this strange quirk of human psychology, that we love things in our entertainment that we would hate to have in our personal lives, and that we are also entertained by hate, fear, and conflict in politics, even though it fills us with apathy, depression, and despair.
Perry Willis was the Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and has managed or worked on six Libertarian Party presidential campaigns. He is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He also co-created the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress.
Well stated, especially the summation "Distract the masses with conflicts that make them rage and hate and fear until they reach the point of exhaustion, after which they will feel depressed and apathetic, leaving us (Hollywood, The Media, politicians) to do whatever we please."
I am always amazed and saddened by patriots, conservatives and libertarians far too much buying into the nonsense that asserts that members of Congress, Supreme Court justices and other federal officials, all of whom must swear an oath to support the Constitution, signifying their subservience to it, supposedly are nevertheless able to change the meaning of the words found in the Constitution, to give them more powers.
We MUST quit believing in fairy tales, in wizards or magicians of supposedly god-like powers, who are so powerful that they can change their own powers.
Nothing is more plain than nothing all those federal servants may do for direct exercise throughout the whole Union may ever revise the Constitution or change their own powers--only the States may ratify changes to the Constitution.
Thus, EVERYTHING appearing contrary to the Constitution is a false legal mirage that we may blow apart with the truth, adequately voiced.
May we all follow the lead of the small dog with a tiny brain, who yet had a trusty nose, and search out the source of the stench and pull back the curtain and expose the fraud.
Everything contrary to the spirit of the Constitution may be permanently (short of amendments) thrown off, once we realize that the Wizard[s] have only false authority beyond the Constitution, and we act accordingly.