I may not know anything about it, but I know what I like . . .

On The Daily Show the other day, Jon Stewart went after the "anti-science" stance of Fox News. Now I hate Fox as much as anyone, and I don't have much patience with science deniers, and also I adore Jon Stewart, so at first I applauded this. Particularly when they got Noelle Nikpour, a party girl with no known qualifications who poses as a "political consultant" on Fox, to say that "scientists are scamming the american people [...] for their own financial gain." When asked if she had any evidence or data for such a claim, she responded that "Every American [...] would have a gut feeling that some of these numbers that scientists are putting out are not right." In other words, no evidence, just "a feeling." Aasiv Mandvi, who was interviewing her, had a lot of fun poking holes in her argument that "average Americans" are better experts on what scientists do than scientists are, asking her things like "so it's wrong that the only people who can say whether or not someone is a good surgeon is other surgeons?" (To which she said "right!")

I too spent some time thinking about how ridiculous this stance is. Do we really want to fly on planes piloted by people who haven't been checked out for their flying skills by other pilots? Or have an operation done by a surgeon who hasn't passed the board exam set by the College of Surgeons?

But then I realized that I was doing what most people do when faced with a statement by someone they think they already disagree with: I was taking their argument to the extreme, stretching it out until I could find the holes in it, so that I could marginalize it, dismiss it, and feel good about my own superior notions, instead of trying to feel into the underlying fear or concern being expressed.

This is precisely why I hate Fox. Their people do just that. They are masters at marginalizing the people who are making a certain argument by stereotyping them (e.g., "socialists") or belittling them ("scam") instead of actually talking about the issue. I had a boyfriend in college who was terrific at this. He would turn everything I said into an issue of semantics and argue with my use of a particular term as a way of avoiding the real issue that I was trying to bring up. I kept saying "but you know what I mean" - but I could never get him to engage on that level. Now I realize that's because he would have lost control of the conversation if he had done so. Keeping it to semantics allowed him to dismiss my concerns and kept him in control.

This is not how a good relationship works.

The more I tried to "feel" the emotion behind the (misleading) words, the more I found myself in sympathy with what Noelle said. (Believe me, the part of me that reflects my scientific upbringing is horrified that I'm saying that, but stick with me.) One of the threads that keeps running through  the books I've been reading for school and my own papers is the pendulum swing we are now experiencing as a culture as regards our attitudes towards science. Western society choose, centuries ago, to put science and logic and rationalism on a big pedestal and to ignore all other ways of knowing, such as intuition, empathy, and Noelle's "gut feelings." Not just to ignore but to denigrate them and make them ridiculous, stupid, and wrong.

(And, incidentally, feminine.)

I realized that in the examples Aasiv Mandvi gave and I just gave above, what we were really talking about was skill. Of course another person who is skilled in a particular field is the best judge of whether or not your own skills are sufficient to do what they do. But I don't think that's what Noelle meant. I think she was trying to say - very poorly, because she's obviously not been trained as I have in how to construct an argument - that there's something wrong with the purely scientific approach to problems. Something's missing. Something's being ignored. Something that isn't wrong.

And I agree. My problem with much scientific endeavor is that all too often it is about what we can do instead of what we should do. How much of our scientific endeavors  have gone into making weapons, for example? My MD has now told me that I don't need that expensive and painful mammogram every year, because it won't make a bit of difference to my longevity. My mechanic nephew says the hydrogen-fueled car could happen tomorrow if people really wanted it. Imagine fueling your car with water! Imagine no more wars over oil, no more environmental destruction for the sake of fueling our huge SUVs. Now imagine the oil companies letting that happen . . . yeah, I can't either. (But what if we all decided that's what we want and stopped buying gasoline?)

 I've said before that the Republicans (who are now led by Fox/Rupert Murdock/Roger Ailes, not the other way around) are much, much better at tapping into the underlying emotions of people than the Democrats are. The Dems are still wedded to facts and logic and believe religiously that all you need to do is present those facts to people and they will understand and do the right thing. I'm afraid this idea - as appealing as it is to me personally - has gone past its expiry date. There is a huge cultural revolution going on, as happens every 500 years. Last time, we opted to let science take the lead. This time, we're reacting against what went wrong - that is, what is wrong with science, what science leaves out and ignores. Every time you deny or repress some aspect of life, it goes underground and gains strength until finally it erupts. It's erupting now.

(Which is good news for us feminine folks.)

But unfortunately, the folks at and behind Fox know how to manipulate that energy. They acknowledge it, first of all. That's all I ever wanted my boyfriend to do: to acknowledge that there was a problem, instead of trying to "logic" me out of my feelings that would not go away. If he had ever said "you're right," I would have stuck with him forever. Because we all want to be validated. It may be the strongest human need, to have our egos stroked in that way, to be told "yes, what you feel has validity." Fox does that. Very smart.

And then - and here's where the genius comes in - they give the problem a name and they tell people WHO TO BLAME. They are turning a cultural/psychological phenomenon into a political one. Like my boyfriend, they want to control others. So they are channeling this energy for their own purposes.

And it's working.

It won't keep working, because despite what Fox says, we are not facing an issue of left-versus-right politics. Leftists are just the folks who put the community first, and rightists put the individual first (although, interestingly enough, leftists tend to be independent and rightists are more "joiners" - talk about how what you repress controls you!). The rights of the polis vs. the rights of the individual has been an issue ever since people started living in tribes, and I suspect we're never getting rid of it. And we shouldn't. If we always put the polis first, we'd have a totalitarian state, but the other extreme is anarchy. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in Nazi Germany or in Somalia. So, it's good we keep each other in balance.

The entire world is changing now, and the problem is waaaaay more complex than that. No matter what the Republicans tell their followers, no matter what the Tea Party claims, we are as inexorably moving away from the "old white males in control" paradigm and the "unlimited growth is good for the economy" paradigm as we are from the "science is the only answer" one. (Just as we moved away from "the Church knows everything" 500 years ago, despite the Inquisition's attempts to squash that change.) You can see the signs everywhere.

But it would help a lot if the Dems wised up to this and started listening to what people mean instead of arguing with the actual words they say.

Note 11/13/11 - Not sure whether to laugh or cry at Ronin's comment. He doesn't understand what I'm saying: he wants me to be logical, make a judgment as to the right-and-wrong of the issue,  explain away how anyone could think like Noelle, and ends up saying that even if we listen to our intuition, science will still win out because it's right. Yup, Ronin, you completely missed the point, but is it my writing or your attitude that's keeping you from getting it?