Arts and Crafts
May 25th, 2006 | by Dr. Forbush |Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner made a big impression in the wider community even if the actual attendees didn’t hoot and holler at the jokes. The point is that humor has a way to connect with people that the straight facts don’t. And, satire does this in an even more subtle way. Satire disarms the audience in by encouraging the audience to agree with the comedian until you realize the satire is absurd. A comedian that is able to do this over and over again truly has a remarkable gift. And, most importantly this gift allows the communication of ideas in such a way that the audience isn’t able put up it’s automatic defense walls and some of the ideas may break through.
Politics is about people learning to live with each other. When groups separate themselves from each other and build political walls between each other then communication doesn’t happen and the country is worse off. One only needs to look at countries where leaders from minority populations use fear to keep their power. The rest of the country suffers at the hands of a few. Do we truly want America to be just another minority controlled country?
If you’ve read this far I hope you agree with me that political communication is the only way to move us forward. And, hitting people with facts and figures will obviously be just like hitting them with sticks and stones; they will either ignore them or it will only make them angry, even if they are wrong. What is needed is a way to disarm those who blindly follow the Republicans and let them believe that they understand what is happening until they realize that they didn’t understand. Then they can finally come to the conclusion that, to quote Weird Al, “Everything you know is wrong.”
Stephen Colbert proved that satire works. We already knew this, but it’s still nice to know when you are right. But we should also remember that other forms of communication work as well. Parables and stories that entertain but also contain a message will certainly do the job. But, the right wing talk radio has created the paradigm that “Hollywood is wrong.” So, movies with positive liberal images of people working together to create a better world just don’t work anymore. Those John Wayne movies will never convince people of what the “True America” is supposed to be.
Art itself communicates in important ways. Paintings like Norman Rockwell give people the romanticized feeling of the way life once was in America. Conservatives like to build on these images as the positive reason to turn the clock around to 1890, 1910 or 1950. But these paintings don’t capture the real life struggle of the workers getting paid just enough to live on so that they are attached to the mining, manufacturing or farming businesses with no where else to turn. An artist that portrays the advances in labor that the Democrats have won for labor is a subtle but important political statement needed in this time of political erosion.
There are many ways to communicate effectively to the “moderates” who will be the deciders of who will govern us. Obviously, straightforward writing as I have done here is more effective in communicating to the converted. People who are undecided don’t generally care about the facts and details that I often write about. People in the middle who are undecided can be convinced of “good” points on both sides of the issue. They are also even more aware of the “bad” points on each side of the issue. In fact, the fear of selecting between to “bad” choices often keeps these people from going out to vote. But, some common sense positive reasons communicated through an alternate means of communication may be the difference in casting and not casting a vote.
All people really want is protection. People want to be protected from all those things that could possibly cause them problems. People want economic security that allows people to take risks on new ideas or businesses and risks are what make America strong. People want to be protected from disease, health problems or the economic problems associated with the loss of health. People want to be secure from the threat of crime, violence or even war. People want to know that the planet they live on today will still be inhabitable for the future generation of their family for centuries to come. And, these are the ideas that need to be communicated as the Democratic ideas to make the world a better place.
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Don’t forget what Stephen Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit