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It is election season in America. That time of year whenpeople start putting up posts and blogs about how candidates are horrible,evil, terrible, corrupt, and will ruin this country if, God forbid, they getelected. And that is just from the people I like and respect - don't get mestarted on what the politically over-invested are posting.
My position? I make most of my living training people how tobuild consensus and resolve conflict. So what may seem like political opinionsto you are, to me, examples of how to do exactly the opposite of everything Iteach. Let's break down what is happening linguistically in most of theseposts:
The"doctor" technique: As in the old joke, "What do the callthe person who graduated last in medical school? Doctor." The techniquegoes something like this: take any candidate. Find the stupidest person intheir party. Find the stupidest thing the stupidest person says. Then link thecandidate to it: "This candidate's party believes in (insert quotedstupidity here)! How horrible!"
"Hate"speech: Take a position. Any position. Then find whomever might not agreewith it 100%, and make the candidate "hate" them. Everywhere I look,candidates apparently hate growth, hate women, hate small business, hateprogress, hate freedom of choice ... or whatever. So, for example, whenever Iwolf down a pizza I apparently "hate" fresh food.
Liar! Liar!: Someonebacked something and then the legislation never passed? He lied! Someone laidout an economic plan and then the economy changed? They lied! Someone crossedparty lines to build a bipartisan consensus on something? She lied! Tryconfronting your spouse with "You LIED!" the next time he or she isrunning a few minutes late sometime, and then let me know me how well it works.
(By the way, in case you are keeping track, the search phrases"Obama lies" and "Romney lies" actually have almostidentical counts on Google - 155 million each, give or take.)
Did you know thatso-and-so voted for (whatever)?: They say if you like laws orsausages, don't watch either being made. Any elected official who does theirjob and votes to keep the budget running, the government functioning, etceterawill vote regularly for huge bills with zillions of obscure things in them.Here, you take the stupidest ones and say your opponent voted for them. Theclassic example of this is "(S)he voted to raise taxes 87 times."
Bracketing: Do Iwant peace? Well, duh, yes. Do I think people should learn and speak English?Golly, my English teacher always thought so. Should we save the environment? Giveme a break, of course we should. Am I in favor of family values? Last time Ilooked, I haven't seen anyone against them. What you are seeing here is atechnique where people ask stupid questions with only one answer, and when yougive the one answer, you are supposedly on their side.
When I see any of these techniques in play, especially inpolitics, I automatically shut down to whatever is being said. Both at apersonal level, because I wasn't taught to talk about others this way, and at apolitical level, because I wish we wouldn't keep voting for polarized gridlockgovernment every year. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to the second week inNovember, when it will hopefully be safe to go back on Facebook again.