A bristle a bit at the discussion re crime. It is superficial at best. For example, the so called liberal media have widely reported it. And as someone who works in NYC, what make me angry is not the discussion of the crime numbers but the reporting that makes it seem as if crime is rampant or has anything to do with policing. Hav…
A bristle a bit at the discussion re crime. It is superficial at best. For example, the so called liberal media have widely reported it. And as someone who works in NYC, what make me angry is not the discussion of the crime numbers but the reporting that makes it seem as if crime is rampant or has anything to do with policing. Having lived long enough to see NYC in the 60s - 80s, i suggest that it ain't rampant. Nor do we believe that it had anything to do with policing - the numbers suggest that the increase started with COVID. The numbers also appear to be reversing.
But truth to tell, it is hard to know why crime increased earlier - so after the 50s and why it peaked in 1990.
So the media are not hiding the story, just as they don't hide the numbers at the border. But the why is a different matter.
The right wing press presents democratic cities as being trashed, burned etc. And there were a few cities that were (and riots have long been a part of our history) but the black live matter protest in Paterson NJ did not even deface the statue of Christopher Columbus.
I have long been concerned that the twin phenomena of (1) perceiving a collection of anecdotes as data, and (2) failing to understand the data in the context of what it does not measure, are aggravated by our new media landscape in which we’re perpetually immersed.
What you’re getting at is the second. I hear over and over again about this or that terrible trend. But outside the window the sun is shining, and when I go to pick up my kid nobody’s going to tear off my mask. I’m not going to get confronted by an armed man at the grocery store, and the clerk’s not going to castigate me for wishing them a “Merry Christmas.” If I misgender you and you correct me, I’ll apologize and do better. If we get in a fender bender, I’m going to do what I can to make it right.
These are the daily lived experiences for most Americans.
But we’re perpetually immersed in someone else’s narrative, which ignores the 100,000 peaceful holiday greetings that occur for each vague grumble about the war on Christmas. By spending hour upon hour in that narrative environment, we lose sight of the world we actually experience. We need to turn off the goddam phone, close the laptop and go out to the park for a walk.
The flip side is the erroneous concept captured by the cliche, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.” The truth is, often your eyes are lying. We can’t rely on our handful of experiences to be accurate and to tell the whole picture. We need adequate doses of other people’s experiences, and a systematic collection of data, to make sure we have the full picture.
The media can aggravate this when it focuses on anecdotes—crime stories are the worst. But it’s a mistake to think the antidote is immersion in current affairs coverage. The true antidote is a broad reading in history, culture, art and science. Where we can learn the context for our experiences in a medium which is not pressing us for immediate decisions about the allocation of power and money.
A bristle a bit at the discussion re crime. It is superficial at best. For example, the so called liberal media have widely reported it. And as someone who works in NYC, what make me angry is not the discussion of the crime numbers but the reporting that makes it seem as if crime is rampant or has anything to do with policing. Having lived long enough to see NYC in the 60s - 80s, i suggest that it ain't rampant. Nor do we believe that it had anything to do with policing - the numbers suggest that the increase started with COVID. The numbers also appear to be reversing.
But truth to tell, it is hard to know why crime increased earlier - so after the 50s and why it peaked in 1990.
So the media are not hiding the story, just as they don't hide the numbers at the border. But the why is a different matter.
The right wing press presents democratic cities as being trashed, burned etc. And there were a few cities that were (and riots have long been a part of our history) but the black live matter protest in Paterson NJ did not even deface the statue of Christopher Columbus.
I have long been concerned that the twin phenomena of (1) perceiving a collection of anecdotes as data, and (2) failing to understand the data in the context of what it does not measure, are aggravated by our new media landscape in which we’re perpetually immersed.
What you’re getting at is the second. I hear over and over again about this or that terrible trend. But outside the window the sun is shining, and when I go to pick up my kid nobody’s going to tear off my mask. I’m not going to get confronted by an armed man at the grocery store, and the clerk’s not going to castigate me for wishing them a “Merry Christmas.” If I misgender you and you correct me, I’ll apologize and do better. If we get in a fender bender, I’m going to do what I can to make it right.
These are the daily lived experiences for most Americans.
But we’re perpetually immersed in someone else’s narrative, which ignores the 100,000 peaceful holiday greetings that occur for each vague grumble about the war on Christmas. By spending hour upon hour in that narrative environment, we lose sight of the world we actually experience. We need to turn off the goddam phone, close the laptop and go out to the park for a walk.
The flip side is the erroneous concept captured by the cliche, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.” The truth is, often your eyes are lying. We can’t rely on our handful of experiences to be accurate and to tell the whole picture. We need adequate doses of other people’s experiences, and a systematic collection of data, to make sure we have the full picture.
The media can aggravate this when it focuses on anecdotes—crime stories are the worst. But it’s a mistake to think the antidote is immersion in current affairs coverage. The true antidote is a broad reading in history, culture, art and science. Where we can learn the context for our experiences in a medium which is not pressing us for immediate decisions about the allocation of power and money.