Political Pragmatism and Christian Sensibilities

There's a lot to be enraged about in the news these days. If you're not disturbed by what's happening around the world, you should be (unless you subscribe to a white supremacist/nationalist ideology then I suppose you'd be enthused). By the same token, if you're like me you will be encouraged and excited by the rising political and economic awareness of people and their demonstrations against corruption in government and their international networks with the shadow economy.

The recent rabble about 'fake news' has re-ignited an old debate I've been having with myself about online activism, confirmation bias, and social media - particularly facebook. At times, the endeavor seems futile. But in my more enthusiastic moments, the engagement is worthwhile, it's a good and morally responsible idea; who would dispute that sharing information about the country and the rest of the world is a bad idea?

And yet, there are concerns. One of them, apart from whether it is effective in changing minds (which the link above alludes to), is first getting the information out there. Recently, I was alerted by facebook that when a friend shares a post of mine - initially shared with friends - that post is only circulated to the friends you have in common (i.e. those who are part of the originally intended audience). This is a feature designed to protect one's privacy, which is a good thing when it comes to sharing personal stuff. But if the purpose of sharing a particular piece of news (article, report, or study, etc.) is to disseminate information, then the feature becomes limiting. Only when a post is shared to the 'public', and a friend uses the function to share with his/her friends or the public, will that information have the potential to spread into the news feed of friends that we do not have in common. If one of the aims of 'online activism' is to indeed spread information and cultivate awareness, then we should click the link, read/view, and repost or post the article in a public forum that can potentially be viewed by those outside our immediate networks.

The second, and perhaps more pressing, concern is the caution of how the news is manipulated or spun, what kind of information are we sharing, is it a full account or not (i.e. context) - which makes a lot of people hesitant to share a piece of information. That is, the danger of a certain kind of political pragmatism that is polarized by 1) separate agendas to manipulate the moral characters of the divided populace and 2) whether the truth-claim of the news is indeed true. The latter tends to operate primarily on a notion of 'appearance' as opposed to the fragile concept of 'truth' which enables the social engineering of the former to appeal to certain moral-somatic sensibilities. In the case of the U.S., I think, this appeals particularly to Christian caricatures of decency and social justice.

Journalism, for the most part, is selective. Most journalists report on the information made available to them. In other words, news agencies and journalists present 'positive information' that has been exposed for a general audience. What this means is that 'negative information' - the news and events that are not reported - is just as, if not more, interesting than what is reported. One of the ways, people can combat some of this is to read the news from multiple sources within a country and from around the world (it's surprising to see what appears in one part of the world and not in another), be critical of the content, "triangulation", and look for various spins and inconsistencies. But let's stick to 'positive information' and its portrayal.

With regard to the U.S., the conservative bias of Fox News is well-known (and of course there are news agencies with a liberal bias). Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, has admitted to trying to shape the agenda. Much of this came out around 2008-09 with the Iraq War. At which point, the war on information was apparent. Almost a decade later, Stephen Bannon is now in full view of the public eye. Reading up on his strategy for media (here and here), and taking a careful look at Breitbart, I realized that my reactions (guilty of being swept in the emotional tides of politics and media) on facebook actually contributed to his aim. The recent hub-bub about Hamilton (Trump's demand for an apology and Pence taking the high road - both premised on a certain spin of the event [video is circulated] - highlighted the different ways it was covered: Breitbart v. Raw Story; the former appealing to 'decency' and the latter to 'social justice') and Dr. Alveda King's recent What-Would-Jesus-Do-defense of Jeff Sessions on Fox News were two cases in point.

The political pragmatism that I'm pointing out is of course about the way in which 'positive information' via media is engineered and manipulated for its efficacy and political utility to persuade and cultivate loyalty. People tend to be reactionary and are morally-charged with a strong sense of righteousness. It cuts across the political spectrum. Both conservatives and liberals are insulated by the vehicles in which information is received. Trump wants to execute a mass deportation scheme (2-3 million). Obama deported 40,000 a year (and from my experience, during the tail-end of Bush and throughout Obama's presidency, in dealing - for work - with the criminal justice system and mental health institutions, it is not difficult to build up a criminal record - especially if one is a poor immigrant or a person of color - and be deported or sent to a private prison). The Bush and Clinton administration exercised torture while the Obama administration simply killed. Both parties have consistently practiced military intervention around the world without telling the public. Both parties have been, and continue to be, horrible with respect to foreign policy and remain complicit in the common agenda of building and hoarding wealth. I don't expect Trump to be any different, although he is certainly poised to change the dynamics of international intervention and the strengthening of global right-wing nationalism.  If anything, Trump - based on his selections to join his team - will put the national and international system on steriods. And yet, the transgressions of the U.S. are not discussed and elections, as well as their post-election tenure, depend on how the moral character of the audience is addressed through the media (Hamilton, noted above, is just one example).  

One of the differences between the Republican and the Democratic party is their position with regard to national civil policy, both of which are rooted in the country's Christian history and landscape. This is where the division among the U.S. population tends to be predicated on two, broadly-construed, manifesting forms of Christianity in the public sphere: the preservation and reproduction of a particular conservative structure and brand of Christianity versus its liberal derivation in advancing the civil liberties of those who fall outside of that domain; Conservative Christian decency v. Liberal Christian social justice, both arguing with their respective understandings of Jesus and the gospels. This is not necessarily to present a mutually exclusive dichotomy nor is it to argue for their singularity in defining the polarizing camps of Christianity in the U.S. Both intersect with a myriad of additional values and the reality is much more accurate when construed along a spectrum. In the bigger picture, the failure of both parties to address the people is also, arguably, a failure of Christianity in addressing white nationalism and white supremacy.

The info-wars not only involve debates about 'truth' and 'appearance' but are also premised on a platform of political pragmatism to enforce one agenda or the other by appealing to different Christian sensibilities. Both carry moral implications and you really "can't be neutral on a moving train."