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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRise of the myth busters: Why Piketty and Tyson are the icons America needs
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/08/summer_of_the_myth_busters_why_piketty_and_tyson_are_the_icons_america_needs/Thomas Pikettys Capital in the 21st Century was published on March 10, 2014, the day after the first episode of Neil deGrasse Tysons Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey aired on Fox and its sister networks.
The fact that both men have captured the public imagination at the same time is at least partly due to that simple fact. Theres also the matter of professional ripeness, behind the appearance of fresh fame: Piketty had been around for some time, publishing papers and collaborating on constructing the Top Incomes database along with Emmanuel Saez, but hed never published anything remotely as sweeping as Capital before. Similarly, Tyson had long been a prominent science communicator as well as astrophysicist, appearing as a guest on numerous shows, including both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as well as hosting PBSs Nova ScienceNow. But hed never hosted a commercial TV show before.
Yet, the two mens sudden popularity is rooted in some deeper similarities as well an empirical hunger, and a desire to think big in shaping the future, are two that come readily to mind. These are both long-standing features of American culture, exemplified by figures like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Luther Burbank, just to name a few. But both these cultural appetites have been repeatedly stifled in 21st-century America. The Bush administration was infamous for its disdain for the empirical, as encapsulated in this famous passage from Ron Suskind:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didnt like about Bushs former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White Houses displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didnt fully comprehend but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide [later identified as Karl Rove] said that guys like me were in what we call the reality-based community, which he defined as people who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. Thats not the way the world really works anymore, he continued. Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while youre studying that realityjudiciously, as you willwell act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort out. Were historys actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)nikto
(3,284 posts)The whole idea of having actual facts and data and cause-and-effect examples
to back up opinions just doesn't seem right.
Isn't it more about how you feel about something, or
how many times something has been repeated, that makes something a fact?
Isn't a "fact" something that has just been repeated 1000 rimes until it becomes true?
Backing ideas up with facts and actual real-life examples seems so bogus.
It's really all about feelings, and repetition.
Ronald Reagan was a God. I know it's true,
because I've heard it so often.
Right?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Emotion drives our actions far more effectively than reason. The results are a bit hit and miss, though. :-/
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)The commonality in the attempts to explain the meaning of their awareness of the different types that they have been introduced to is that art is about "emotion," about "feelings." They hardly ever mention intellect.
Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)- and this is where I think the emotional thinking and non-emotional thinking comes from.
Basically, there are two different systems your brain has for processing information and making decisions. System one is fast, automatic, and based on intuition while system two is slow and deliberative. When we are presented with a problem, our brains kick into one or the other depending on the situation. The article I linked below gives some great examples of both.
[url]http://www.dangreller.com/two-types-of-thinking/[/url]
So, for one reason or another, people just don't kick into the second mode of thinking when it comes to issues like income inequality, global warming, etc. I think it is just easier to not think about stuff in depth and to go with the "gut" or system 1 conclusion.
Snarkoleptic
(6,001 posts)telling their sheeple who to be afraid of and who to blame for their every woe.
Snarkoleptic
(6,001 posts)All of the RW talk of "God, gays, guns" is the red herring we're supposed to fixate on as the plutocrats push the true agenda.
George Carlin nailed it-
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Wanders a bit but that's because it tries to cover so much ground in so little space. I picked up some good links to follow later:
Big Five personality traits: The Big Five factors are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Explains quite a bit about why conservatives have problems accepting science and cling to their security blankets.
And a book to put on hold at the library:
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality by Chris Mooney
http://www.amazon.com/The-Republican-Brain-Science-Science/dp/1118094514/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
BTW, Cosmos last night was one of the best episodes.
LittleGirl
(8,291 posts)last night. We just got our tv hooked up with a provider (we couldn't get the local fox station via antennea) and have only seen two episodes so far. Last night was so good. Yes.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)$29 on Amazon.
LittleGirl
(8,291 posts)We missed the season. by the way, I see an Indiana map...consider me a lost Hoosier living away from the state, ha. Cheers.
mmonk
(52,589 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)I believe news media should be biased in favor of truth. Fairness comes from holding all sides to the same standard of truth.
But I also believe that the universe does not care what we believe. Nature's truths trump our beliefs.
And, sadly, I also recognize that lying often works. Advertising pays off. I believe truth will come out in the end, but a well-timed lie can temporarily sway buyers, or voters.
Initech
(100,102 posts)It was nice to have something intelligent to watch for a change. I hope this isn't the end and Prof. Tyson has enough material for a second season.