True confession: I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. My family left the religion when I was 13, dismayed by the bulk of their teachings and policies. Now while young, I didn't really see that the Witnesses behaved in any sort of odd or cult-like behavior. After all, it was the enviornment I grew up in, so I was used to it. But as I began to breathe the fresh air of a more free and open approach to learning and a less sheltering philosophy smothering me, I began to understand. Now I was outside looking in, and I saw the group for what I now believe it to be: a fearful, borderline paranoid, hypocritical and elitist group.
One of the teachings the church hammered into us was a total rejection of the society around us, as it was evil, corrupting and not to be trusted. Oh, and God was going to destroy it all soon, so don't get too attached to it. But when you have groups of people, assuring themselves that they're the annointed and the rest of the world is scary, even dangerous, they create one massive breeding ground for an echo chamber of bad, and sometimes totally false information.
Belief is an amazing thing. Belief does not require evidence, research or critical review. In this way, religious beliefs are like political beliefs to a degree. It would be nice if those beliefs were rooted in facts or reason, but more and more that doesn't seem to be all that crucial to those in politics, and moreso, in the media. But hey, when you're with your own kind, nodding in tacit agreement that you're right, the warm fuzzies that result have a way of clobbering logic.
Now, take our two glorious political parties. As I wrote in my previous piece about the Tea Party, I stated that they, above all else, have shown the parties to be out of touch with their nation, and sometimes their own party itself. This is partially to do with the echo chamber effect. It's why massively compensated executives sometimes don't know that their own company has crippling infastructure problems (example: the collapse of Sam Goody from top music retailer in the U.S. to bankrupt within a decade). It's why the Democrats think the Tea Party pose no real threat to them (assuredly, they do). It's why Republicans think abortion is a hot buttom issue, even though there hasn't been a serious challenge to Roe v. Wade in at least a decade. The echo chamber.
Now, contradict those self-reinforced beliefs, and this is what can happen: you can be physically assaulted for wanting a politician to see your sign of protest (Rand Paul's campaign manager stomping on Lauren Valle's head in Kentucky). You can also be called offensive names by a prominent TV commentator (Joy Behar's repeatedly uttered epithet "bitch" directed at Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle). Or, you can even just refuse to express yourself if you even think there might be someone there to disagree with you or challenge your views (Christine O'Donnell shockingly backing out of a scheduled and advertized Sunday morning appearance on Fox News).
The reason for this is that these people have raised their opinions to the level of belief, and in religious terms, to contradict that belief is blasphemy. And if you picture how God reportedly dealt with Sodom, you can kind of match that up with the above examples of percieved political heresy.
Based on this, I beg our media and our politicians to mix more among those who disagree with them than those that agree. Validation from within your own group of believers does not make your views stronger, it just makes them more ingrained. It's only in this way that these people can come out of their self-stiched cacoons and see what's really going on in our nation, rather than relying on the ethereal web of belief.
Mike Grefski
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