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I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

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Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#11

Post by Carltonian »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #6

Some of us are terrified of an ever-more invasive government, welfare progams that only ever seem to be welfare for corporations, and the destruction of the important american myth of hard work == success. Some of us keep listening to lies and dreams from an increasingly despotic asshole while american prosperity drifts away. You've lost yourself in fantasyland, not the other way around.

And those of you that think this believe Fox News has your interests in mind? Where does them making money off of selling subscriptions and political campaign ads at ridiculous markup come into this? What a coincidence. They're not only one of the most expensive channels a cable company has to pay for, but they're also heroes.

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#12

Post by Buntraceable »

I highly recommend anyone in a similar situation read Jonathan Haidt's book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion."

Haidt is a psychologist who studies moral development, and while I don't believe everything he puts forth in the book to be gospel, he makes many good points about how people come to moral conclusions (which may not be logical conclusions, but nonetheless are based on what the person uses their senses to believe is true).

You can hear a summary of Haidt's theory or moral matrices, as well as an example of how the theory has been employed to talk to people across the "political divide": http://media.uoregon.edu/channel/2013/06/04/what-on-earth-is...

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#14

Post by DanielStraight »

forgotAgain wrote: post #10

I find the father and the writer to be insufferable. The father for, as portrayed, his clutching ignorance, the writer for being a born-again snob.

Indeed. If he lost his father to Fox news, then his father lost his son to self-righteousness and a willingness to throw family under the bus for the sake of attention.

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#16

Post by Prophasi »

Carltonian wrote: post #5

Addiction really is the operating word here. It's what keeps you in front of the TV in the same way it keeps people in front of slot machines. The worst part is the thesis of conservative media; that while you do everything right, some nebulous liberal agenda is taking away everything that you hold dear, and are entitled to as a working person (ignoring all information regarding demographics and welfare recipients).…

"The worst part is the thesis of [...] media; that while you do everything right, some nebulous [...] agenda is taking away everything that you hold dear, and are entitled to as a working person"

That's not particular to conservative media; it's the same tactic used to convince whole swaths of the population that the rich, the white, sexists, racists, jingoists, big corporations, government, etc. are keeping you down.

Leveling it at only one side of a debate is falling into the trap polemicists set up. They all do this, from every angle and via all means possible. It's just propaganda, and one insidious aspect of it is that they convince people only the other side engages in it.

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#17

Post by swframe »

I lost my Mom to Fox News for a while but after talking with her, she has come back. I didn't actually expect her to return but it is so easy to point out the holes in the Fox News arguments. I'm atheist but I know the bible well enough to use it to refute any argument she has heard on Fox. The wonderful thing about the bible is that you can quote it to defend or defeat just about any point of view.

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#18

Post by Carltonian »

Prophasi wrote: post #16
Carltonian wrote: post #5

Addiction really is the operating word here. It's what keeps you in front of the TV in the same way it keeps people in front of slot machines. The worst part is the thesis of conservative media; that while you do everything right, some nebulous liberal agenda is taking away everything that you hold dear, and are entitled to as a working person (ignoring all information regarding demographics and welfare recipients).…

"The worst part is the thesis of [...] media; that while you do everything right, some nebulous [...] agenda is taking away everything that you hold dear, and are entitled to as a working person" That's not particular to conservative media; it's the same tactic used to convince whole swaths of the population that the rich, the white, sexists, racists, jingoists, big corporations, government, etc. are keeping you down…

True, but Fox News is the best at it, so they get the flak. I'll give the other channels for convincing people Obama was going to change things, but those people already mostly wanted change (especially after the financial crisis). Fox News did more than that. They convinced people who had been Republicans for 30 years that they have been libertarians fo 30 years. That's just really scary.

Re: I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

#19

Post by onli »

mcphilip wrote: post #7

Fox News is a reasonable focal point for this piece, but it's only one small contributing factor. The sad thing is that purveyors of fear and distrust are all over the internet. I lost my dad to some combination of Glen Beck, Fox News, and the "Gold, Guns, and God" crowd. I caught glimpses of it via his emails from time to time. The first major one being links to radiation pills after Fukushima. Then the obsession wi…

I don't know if that is common knowledge (or how old your father is), but there is a specific kind of paranoia which is quite common after a specific age. In Germany it's called Altersparanoia, informally (which translates to paranoia of the old). What you describes doesn't sound like the radicalization caused by manipulating (and fascist?) propaganda, but more like that (maybe triggered or fortified by that thought environment, might be possible. We still don't know enough about stuff like that). Though the holy spirit should make it a different thing, a schizophrenic attack.

I'm sorry, good luck to you and your family.

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