September 15, 2021

Social realities are deteriorating into undifferentiated assumptions. That means simpler and simpler explanations which leave out the complexities and controversies.

An example is the recent way journalists have been describing the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and at other times, President Kennedy, with dismissiveness of any controversy. Now days, journalists brush off any concept of a dispute with contempt. There are a lot of persons who disagree that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy including book authors who are quite informed.

But the purpose here is not to re-argue or prove who did the killing. The purpose here is how whimsically and contemptuously journalists dismiss the controversy as if there never were or could be a controversy.

That result is a deterioration of differentiation. It removes controversy from a subject, as if there never could be more than one obvious side to an issue.

Even if journalists assume removing controversy from a subject is a good thing, they are in no position to be the arbitrators of which side is right in a controversy. But being on the wrong side of a controversy is not the point. Which side is right or wrong is supposed to evolve out of the discussion, not be arbitrated by uninformed persons.

When uninformed persons do the arbitrating, they are never going to get the subject right. In fact, persons whose standards are that low are always drawn to the wrong conclusions.

That trend of eliminating controversy and opposing concerns is getting starkly corrupt in journalism. It is reducing the social reality to infantile propaganda. Society cannot operate at that standard and solve social problems.

It is removing a critical mechanism from rationality. It's like taking a motor out of an automobile. There is no possibility of getting realities right with such a deterioration of standards of communication.

The mechanism being removed from rationality is differentiation. That means looking at or representing all elements of complex realities instead of reducing them to trite claims.

No problems can be solved with reductionistic realities. That's why science exists. All elements of complex realities must be understood to solve problems. Journalists are doing the opposite in removing complex elements from realities.

It's not a question of going into more detail or re-arguing issues over and over. It's a question of the visible motive of closing the doors of controversy. All journalists have to do is leave open questions open instead of removing any possibility of criticism.

But the corollary is that journalists also have to be more complex in representing subjects. The reductionistic simplicity that passes for journalism now days is infantile to a point of insulting our intelligence.