C I P R I A N I

I read somewhere – I believe it was Lance Morrow’s book from a few years back EVIL – something to the effect that if it weren’t for evil, history would have no conflict and without that conflict, in a sense we couldn’t mark change and in essence there would be no time.  

Conflict is the stuff of life, be it internally or externally, large or small – it’s what keeps us engaged historically, dramatically, cinematically, sportingly and even musically.  The tension that’s built keeps us interested and at least in the case of the arts – cinema, music, literature, in a sense the contrast in visuals is conflict – hopefully this creates a sense of satisfaction.

Historically and sportingly, depending on what side of the ball you’re on, satisfaction is certainly not always the case.  If your country lost the war or your team lost the World Series, you’re probably not “satisfied” but it’s safe to say until the end, when you actually lost – you were on the edge of your seat, hoping for the best.

News, such as it is, somewhere along the line felt the need to become dramatic certainly as Politics became more sport.

Us against them.  Blue State Vs. Red State.  Fox Vs. MSNBC…

It’s neat, easy, clean and most of the time distorted leaving out crucial information.

All for the sake of drama.

Since conflict is indeed the stuff of life, one would think that simply the reporting of the news would be compelling enough.  However (and this is hardly a recent occurence, the Yellow Journalism Newsmen of the early 20th century are merely precursors to the current batch of folks that have mastered it)  there’s a lot more competition for news now days.  Both within, in terms of competiting news services, and without, in terms of other various diversions.

Never in Western Human History has there been so much to divert and distract us…and so easily.

So news must be compelling and dramatic and pull us in, and politics has to be sexy and easy to understand.

So news invents and fans the fires of already inherent minor conflict, but rather than illuminating a possible solution, it often misdirects and blows things out of proportion.  And politics provides us with attractive people that may or may not be the best person for the job, reducing what is often complex and frankly boring material into platitudes and sound bytes.

And while all this is done to keep us interested, at the end of the day, a lot of this stuff – economy, health care, environment, war and even peace – contains some components that if real solutions are ever going to be found, a little more time has to be spent with it and simplifying things for the sake of engagement does more harm than good.

The discourse needs to get a little less dramatic so that we might actually be able to solve some these very real problems, in short…more boring.