However, as it generally happens that those, who have had many experiences, vacillate, so long as they regard a thing as future or past, and are usually in doubt about its issue (II. xliv. note); it follows that the emotions which arise from similar images of things are not so constant, but are generally disturbed by the images of other things, until men become assured of the issue.
Baruch Spinoza – Ethics (1677)
As Spinoza said, shifting from one viewpoint to another counts as a disturbance and we don’t generally seek this kind of disturbance. It’s a barrier to change, a hill we would have to climb to see what’s on the other side.
This brings out an aspect of the term ‘confirmation bias’, because we don’t necessarily seek the confirmation. Sometimes we do, mostly we don’t, because seeking confirmation might be disturbing. In the main it’s just bias, protection against disturbance and the online world suggests it can be pretty crude protection.
This is what mainstream media cater for, not only bias but the underlying protection against disturbance. They even make conspicuous and repeated use of the word ‘disturbing’, as do politicians. Bias is the outcome, the behaviour we see, while the remarkably powerful spectre of disturbance is what keeps the bias in place. News stories which might be disturbing are presented as windows on a disturbing world, confirmation that a particular media comfort zone is the right comfort zone.
Apart from confounding factors such as vested interests, this issue of disturbance seems to account for the slow pace in which absurd public narratives are corrected. It can take generations or even centuries to correct even the most abject stupidity. Belief in witchcraft is a historical example, catastrophic climate change a modern one.
4 comments:
You could interpret political history as periods of disturbance and periods of consensus, alternating. Sometimes driven by events, dear boy, and sometimes by exhaustion.
Arguably the later part of Tony Blair's reign, Gordon Brown, then various iterations of the 'steady as she goes' Conservatives all favoured 'consensus' - apart from brief disturbance by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (but they were too disturbing to last).
We have now stood aside allowing a disturbing Labour government to mess things up, but it's the wrong sort of disturbance, making things worse rather than better.
I suspect the general electorate are still fed up with 'consensus'. Whether the Conservatives can re-invent themselves or Reform step up to the challenge is another matter... the wider western world seems to be fed up with consensus too.
DJ - "I suspect the general electorate are still fed up with 'consensus'."
So do I, there is something stirring and it isn't a desire for more leaders like Keir Starmer or more politicians like Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Ed Miliband and co.
Rather a disturbing thought (see what I did there?) that it might take centuries to break free of the climate change cult.
Peter - reality should speed things up, but it has already persisted for an absurdly long time.
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