{With drug-testing and welfare issues remaining controversial and salient today in a larger debate about the social safety net, this week, I flashback to an analysis I conducted on drug-testing welfare policies and their implications.}
Drug testing for welfare is an issue that has been especially controversial in the wake of the budget tightening many states have had to do in recovering from the economic downturn of 2008. States like Colorado, continuing with their reputation as laboratories of democracy, have pushed forward with laws to limit access to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or welfare, by requiring drug tests (PBS 2012). However, with any complex policy issue such as welfare, there are many factors that must be considered when developing standards for this kind of drug testing, as 31 states have as of 2011 (HSP 2011). Thus, many evaluative criteria, in this case, must be used in the analysis of this policy, including effectiveness, efficiency, equity, liberty and administrative, social and political feasibility.
To start with, to understand what the policy’s goals are, there is a need to understand how policymakers have defined the problem this policy is meant to target. In most states, the proposal to drug test welfare recipients has mostly been defined in relation to realizing cost savings, although in other states there are a couple of added dimensions, including child well-being and employability, with the overall goal being to reduce the welfare rolls (HSP 2011). Therefore, the problem would be defined under cost savings in that there are simply too many people on welfare rolls for states experiencing economic stress. Those states that emphasize the policy’s need to address child well-being would suggest that the problem is primarily ensuring that TANF funds go to address the needs of children who could otherwise inadvertently be harmed by their parents’ drug use (HSP 2011). Yet others, only focusing on defining the problem of huge welfare rolls resulting from decreased employability, would say that drug testing for welfare benefits would inspire people to get clean and in turn eliminate a major obstacle to employment, which would lead to reduced welfare rolls (HSP 2011).
Now that the problem and its dimensions in relation to the alternative policy have been addressed, it is time to start applying evaluative criteria. In terms of effectiveness, or if the policy will be adequate in addressing the goals laid out (cost savings, ensuring child well-being, increasing employment), my analysis on this front is mixed. I think that the policymakers here were focusing on more proximate rather than root causes of the problem of large welfare rolls (i.e.-focus on cost savings), although it almost seems to hint at addressing potential root causes, which in this case would be increasing employment (reduction of poverty and therefore dependence on welfare rolls) (HSP 2011). One issue I would see with using drug tests is that it would only detect recent drug use and probably not the extent of the problem, such as how often a person uses drugs. Also, alternative drug abuse treatments could be more appropriate in the long run and false positives are possible (HSP 2011). Even considering the latter, I feel like this policy has well-intended goals and is wise to address more than one dimension of the problem (in the states that have all the above as goals in considering this policy), making it seem like a reasonable approach considering resource constraints. Still, I feel that more underlying factors like alternative treatment or therapy should have been given greater emphasis in this policy.
Meanwhile, efficiency and administrative feasibility was definitely more of a problem in considering the drug testing policy. The costs include the population being tested (those that have a recent felony conviction for a drug crime are the ones selected to be tested in most states), purchasing the tests, ensuring that applicants and lab workers are complying with the law, modification of the labs and their computer software, potential drug treatment programs, reimbursement to a person testing negative, and legal fees from potential lawsuits (HSP 2011). Estimates done by the Human Services Policy branch under the Department of Health and Human Services has found that costs in states that have implemented this policy range from $92,487 to $3.4 million and those estimates did not take into account all of the potential cost factors or even all of the states that have implemented such laws (HSP 2011). Moreover, with some states, there is an unknown price tag assigned to the full implementation of this law. In looking at the variability of potential costs, it seems to be a risky approach for a state that could already be undergoing extreme penny-pinching as a result of the economic downturn and that the benefits reaped would seem negligible at the very worst to minimal at best. Studies undertaken on this policy have shown that states, when it came to cost reductions, achieved minimal savings at the most. Testing accuracy can also be variable, bringing more uncertainty into a state’s investment in this kind of policy (Grovum 2014).
Administrative feasibility in this issue is very much tied to the costs associated with the running of such programs in states. The states need to hire competent lab workers, train them to observe laws and lab protocols, and give them the technology they need to accurately analyze drug testing samples (HSP 2011). For states that are pinching their budgets, they might be hard-pressed to train an adequate workforce for all the testing they want to do under the law. If lawmakers wanted to expand their testing population from those with recent drug convictions (from 13%-20%, varies by state) to those with drug convictions up to five years previous (20%+ of TANF applicants), that would mean hiring more personnel and upgrading overall capacity to handle the new demand (HSP 2011). I don’t think that the cost and administrative upgrade would justify the relatively minor benefit a state would get out of that.
Also, I found red flags when I measured the policy up against equity, liberty, political and social criterions. Equity, in terms of public policy, is defined as the population being treated fairly under legislation. I agree with points raised regarding the stigma surrounding welfare and welfare applicants being reinforced as a result of implementation of such policies (Grovum 2014). While it may be an unintended consequence on lawmakers’ parts, it could further discrimination and inequity on those parts of the population most in need of TANF, such as families at or below the poverty line and the unemployed (PBS 2012). However, others argue that this policy would go further in ensuring that those who use drugs can get the help they need and be productive members of society (PBS 2012). A 2011 poll by Rasmussen found 53% of voters nationwide in support of the policy, suggesting somewhat of a divide in public opinion (Rasmussen 2011). Furthermore, there are legal issues that go along with drug testing for welfare benefits. The American Civil Liberties Union has suggested that this law could violate the 4th Amendment provision against unreasonable search and seizures and the right to privacy in those cases where applicants do not have a previous history of drug use or drug related convictions (PBS 2012). Equally divisive is considering the policy from a political feasibility standpoint, with Republicans mainly backing this kind of legislation (as in Colorado), while Democrats, in states like Minnesota, are considering repealing such legislation (Grovum 2014). This policy could face an uphill battle in those states with Democratic majorities or those that could, not to mention the legal challenges from groups like the ACLU looming on the horizon (Grovum 2014).
In conclusion, policy like this is likely to be controversial, especially when it comes to the problems lawmakers are specifically targeting and the segments of the population that would be most affected. My overall opinion of the drug testing for welfare policy is that states with limited resources are trying to get the most for their buck, but a policy like this needs serious re-evaluation to improve its policy outcomes to maximize the return in a state’s investment. Lawmakers should start from scratch or apply this idea in conjunction with other policies that focus on root, rather than proximate causes, of large welfare rolls.
Works Cited:
Grovum, Jake. (2014, March 06). Some States Still Pushing Drug Testing For Welfare. Retrieved October 22, 2014, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/06/stateline-drug-testing-welfare-states/6118111/.
Human Services Policy. (2011, October 11). Drug Testing Welfare Recipients: Recent Proposals and Continuing Controversies. Retrieved October 22, 2014, from https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/drug-testing-welfare-recipients-recent-proposals-and-continuing-controversies.
Kersey, Lori. (2018, June 03). UN expert: 'Contempt' Drives 'Cruel Policies' in the US. Retrieved June 8, 2018, from https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/un-expert-contempt-drives-cruel-policies-in-the-us/article_bd8e1741-172a-5636-aa5f-16292f067b25.html.
PBS. (2012, March 20). To Receive Welfare, Should Drug Test Be Required? Retrieved October 21, 2014, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/to-receive-welfare-should-drug-test-be-required.
Rasmussen Reports. (2011, July 20). 53% Support Automatic Drug Testing For Welfare Applicants. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/53_support_automatic_drug_testing_for_welfare_applicants.
Friday, June 22, 2018
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Presidential Speech-Making Continued: President Obama's 2011 Tucson Speech
{Part 2 on a series looking at presidential speech-making.}
{While words don't necessarily translate into action, a president's words nonetheless reveals a great deal about how they communicate with and see the world, as well as their policy goals. In an age of 140-character policy announcements and 24-hour media, this week we take a look back at the news coverage surrounding President Obama's 2011 Tucson shooting address to highlight the differences (and the inherent, possibly surprising similarities) in how presidents choose to communicate. For instance, note the emphasis on emotional appeals and appeals to patriotism. Sound familiar? It's a tactic most presidents have used to bolster their more rational arguments and to persuade the audience in the moment. However, one may feel that they more saturated with emotional appeals now in 2018 than in the past.}
The January 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona at a constituent meeting by suspect Jared Loughner that killed six people and wounded thirteen others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, prompted President Obama to give a memorial speech eulogizing the victims in the wake of the shooting as is common in times of national crises or tragedies (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2 & 6; OPS, 2011; Pol 304 Lectures). However, the subsequent resulting news coverage of the speech produced diverse framings of the story, a product of constraints on journalists from multiple actors in the political information system as well as editorial favoring of certain themes that may or may not then be used to produce a slight ideological slant based on the news sources’ either mass or niche audience (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2, 4, & 5; Pol 304 Lectures). In this paper, I will analyze the framings of the Tucson speech in the context of these journalistic constraints that necessarily lead to manifestations of the four informational biases in four articles by the Washington Times, CNN, FOX, and the New York Times, with a brief conclusion examining the implications of my findings for the informational needs of democracy.
To begin with, I will examine the similarities between the four articles in terms of the general informational biases of fragmentation, personalization, dramatization and authority- disorder bias manifest in the language and construction of the reports concerning President Obama’s speech (Bennett, 2007, p. 40-41). In all of the articles, there was a common thread of dramatization and personalization biases rooted out of the officialdom bias (the President as a federal official having the power to define a situation), with the President’s speech being highlighted in highly emotional and patriotic terms (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 4 & 5; OPS, 2011). In each report, the journalists’ language is highly patriotic, with such themes touched upon in the classic authority-disorder bias plot as (very easily) constructed from the President’s speech: the villain (suspect Jared Loughner), the heroes (both the surviving victims of the shooting, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the fallen), and the need for national unity and healing in the wake of the shooting (Bennett, 2007, p. 43-44).
Patriotism aside in the context of a national tragedy or crisis, the articles began to diverge from the transcript of President Obama’s speech that called for national unity (including remembrance of the victims, touting those who survived as heroes, and calling for a less divisive political practice) among numerous broad themes, to emphasize particular aspects of the speech (OPS, 2011). Before we get into that analysis, it is important to note that the transcript itself of the speech was largely taken in emotional terms, and the investigation of the shooting was largely left out, perhaps contributing to the fragmentation biases each news organization presented in their reports on the speech (OPS, 2011).
Looking first at the news articles that seem to have more of a political lean, one can see the more obvious signs of journalistic choices in taking the bits and pieces of the story and putting them into a coherent, summarized narrative. While all articles had common threads and elements, certain articles more heavily featured an emphasis on one story narrative over another, as hinted at in the content of the title and opening paragraph (Pol 304 Lectures). Starting with the FOX (“Obama Urges a National Dialogue of Healing at Arizona Memorial Service”), New York Times (“Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics”) and Washington Times (“Obama: May Good Come of Arizona Tragedy”) news articles, we see immediately in these titles the differences in aspects of the event being covered compared to the CNN article. With the FOX, New York Times, and Washington Times articles, the aspect of the speech that is the most emphasized is from the perspective of, as FOX puts it “tempering the political discourse now polarizing the public square” and in memory of the shooting victims “usher in a new era of civility in their honor” (FOX, 2011, p. 1; NY Times, 2011, p. 1).
Whereas those reporters focused on the political partisanship side of the story narrative, in which the shooting is portrayed almost as a byproduct of a toxic political system with powerful partisan figures clashing together on a daily basis as a backdrop, in the CNN article, the focus from the outset is the strong invocation of a standardized theme of hope or healing (Bennett, 2007, p. 41). However, there are implications hinted at in all of the articles, with the New York Times article manifesting it the most with the following line: “While the tone and content [of the speech] were distinctly nonpolitical, there were clear political ramifications to the speech, giving Mr. Obama…a chance to try and occupy a space outside of the partisanship or agenda” in which the President was noted as “setting aside a partisan health care debate to honor the lives of the victims” (NY Times, 2011, p. 2).
The Washington Times article pushes a bit further with an authority-disorder bias despite the underlying skepticism (and slight ideological bias in use of this bias to implicitly call the President out on the quality of his leadership), saying that President Obama was “under high expectations to calm the [partisan] tensions” as “healer-in-chief,” but to the journalist perhaps failed in “keeping his distance from an often acerbic debate over whether heated political rhetoric by supporters of the tea party movement (perhaps hinted at by the mention of Sarah Palin’s assertion of the media’s “blood libel” or charges that her rhetoric could have helped motivate the shooting) played any role in the attack on the Democratic lawmaker” (Washington Times, 2011, p. 1). Going further into the article, further ritual adversarialism of journalists towards elite actors “not telling the whole story” is seen when the journalist talks about a “raft of evidence” concerning how the suspect was supposed to have targeted Giffords and then contrasting it with a line from the President’s speech that “…none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack” (Washington Times, 2011, p. 2; Pol 304 Lectures). Similar skepticism is hinted at in the FOX article, even with its “national healing” narrative focus, with the line that “Obama bluntly conceded that there is no way to know what triggered the mass shooting” and that a Pima County Sheriff (not mentioned in the other articles) was applauded after he attributed the motives for the shooting to “extreme political rhetoric, bigotry, and hatred” (FOX, 2011, p. 1-2). However, for the most part, while the other articles emphasized the authority-disorder bias as well by standardized mentions of need for healing and national unity post-crisis, the Washington Times especially makes heavy use of this particular slant (CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011, NY Times, 2011; Washington Times, 2011).
Although, to a degree, the other articles touched upon similar storylines as well, illustrating the varying degrees of the four informational biases as commonplace reporting characteristics resulting from a variety of factors, such as journalistic dependence on elite sources like the President (officialdom bias) for verifying and approving particular realities and tellings (Bennett, 2007, p. 41, 196-197; Pol 304 Lectures). However, the CNN article exhibited the highest degree of most of the informational biases to me, especially in respect to the officialdom bias, even more than the New York Times, which highlighted the President in a more positive light (CNN, 2011; NY Times, 2011). In fact, looking at the CNN article, from the outset, the focus is on Gabrielle Giffords and the First Family’s visit to her hospital (as first mentioned in the story highlights) and her “opening her eyes” and almost seems to dip the furthest into what could be termed “soft news” that only marginally informs the public about political issues, especially in the context of a national crisis (CNN, 2011, p. 1; Graber, 2011, p. 113-125). Throughout the rest of the article, the journalist chooses to heavily lean on the personalization and dramatization biases, citing the President’s comforting Scripture passages regarding standing against evil along with the happy and miraculous recovery of Representative Giffords (CNN, 2011). Essentially, the CNN article was dismissive of the other aspects of the President’s speech, and it isn’t until the bottom of the fourth page that the suspect, Jared Loughner, is mentioned briefly in one line and the outside details of how many perished in the shooting and where is given a few paragraphs before the Jared Loughner line (CNN, 2011, p. 4-5).
Sprinkled throughout the report and until the end is the use of language such as “hope”, “tragedy,” and “Gabby opened her eyes,” with the journalist turning Giffords into a recognizable symbol of a hero surviving against all odds and the victims (as in Obama’s speech) as innocents who represented “the best of America” (CNN, 2011). While readers may have gained some passing knowledge if they read far enough into the CNN article about the outside circumstances surrounding the shooting vaguely hinted at in the President’s speech, such as who was killed, who survived, the suspect, where the shooting took place and the Westboro Baptist Church’s planned picketing of a shooting victim’s funeral (although most only read the first paragraph, necessitating the inverted pyramid structure in which the journalist puts the most important and succinct “facts” first), ultimately they would come out confused about the event as a whole (Bennett, 2007, p. 191; CNN, 2011). Thus, the CNN article manifests the fragmentation bias as well, focusing more heavily on the human drama and tragedy aspects it picks up from the speech that the media generally utilize as easily communicable frames to complement their need for summarization and simplicity (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2).
All in all, when taking a look at all of the articles together, all of them manifest significant fragmentation bias, with CNN heavily focusing on the President’s visit to recovering Representative Gabrielle Giffords (CNN, 2011). If we regard the goal of news to report the relevant “who, what, where, when and why” circumstances of events, the articles, depending on the news source the audience member attended to provided a similar, yet different story narrative (Pol 304 Lectures). The audience either got a narrative of the speech focusing on the authority-disorder bias (can the president fulfill his duty to be “healer-in-chief” and reassure a nation?), the standard hope and healing narrative in which Representative Giffords was especially utilized, or the partisanship narrative, in which the aspects of the speech highlighted in the article focused on the toxicity of partisan rhetoric (i.e. political conflict), even while some articles mentioned that the President was trying to be as nonpolitical as possible in his speech (CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011; NY Times, 2011; Washington Times, 2011). The latter political partisanship theme to me especially was indicative of ritualistic journalistic adversarialism in which individuals such as Sarah Palin, the President, the shooting suspect, various individual Congress members and even the Westboro Baptist Church spokeswoman are featured as players in the stories by all four news organizations (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2, p. 196-197).
Simultaneously, the latter characters are critiqued by the journalists for their possible roles in the conflict as well as positioned more personally in order to produce an overriding conflict narrative (i.e. attribution of responsibility for political rhetoric especially in the FOX, New York Times, and Washington Times articles) rather than focusing on the underlying institutions or processes at play behind the speech and shooting (Bennett, 2007, p. 196-197).
In essence, the articles covering President Obama’s Tucson Memorial Speech may have provided some hints towards underlying systemic problems (maybe political rhetoric and certain political movements, etc.), but as a whole, the journalistic tendency to summarize based on limited information and produce an interpretation of an event (a story) that people can easily connect with, probably left those same people with very incomplete understandings as to all of the themes that the President chose to utilize in his speech as well as the relevant actors involved in and surrounding the event (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2; CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011; NY Times, 2011; OPS, 2011; Washington Times, 2011). For example, while the articles necessarily covered the speech, there were differing degrees of coverage, with many articles sandwiching in between the President’s quotes mentions of outside figures, such as Sarah Palin and other necessarily positioned characters maneuvered in to seem adversarial and create that formulaic political drama narrative (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2). This perhaps signals that the news media are perhaps not fulfilling their needs to inform citizens about underlying processes and issues that may impact their critical decision-making processes about their democracy in the long run, a criticism especially echoed by Bennett (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 1-2; Pol 304 Lectures).
Nevertheless, one needs to consider the pressures exerted on journalists by influences from the rest of the political journalistic system and that some of the articles I examined above are exercising some degree of hopeful independence from elite narratives in the variety of outside information they pulled in and resulting diversity in some narrative frames (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 1-2, 5; Pol 304 Lectures).
Works Cited:
Bennett, W. Lance & Graber, Doris A. (2007). News: The Politics of Illusion (6th ed.). New York: Pearson Longman.
CNN Wire Staff. (2011, January 13). Obama: ‘The Hopes of a Nation are Here Tonight.’ Retrieved April 1, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/12/arizona.shooting.victims/.
Cooper, Helene, Zeleny, Jeff, & NY Times. (2011, January 12). Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/us/13obama.html?_r=0.
FOX News. (2011, January 13). Obama Urges a National Dialogue of Healing at Arizona Memorial Service. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/12/obama-visits-rep-giffords-ahead-memorial-service.html.
Graber, Doris. (2011). Media Power in Politics (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
McDougal, Stephen. (2016, January-April). Pol 304 Lectures: Media and Politics. Lectures presented at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse.
Rowland, Kara and Washington Times (2011, January 13). Obama: May Good Come of Arizona Tragedy. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from https://uwlax.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/content/3163152/viewContent/19978729/View.
White House Office of the Press Secretary. (2011, January 12). Remarks By the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson.
{While words don't necessarily translate into action, a president's words nonetheless reveals a great deal about how they communicate with and see the world, as well as their policy goals. In an age of 140-character policy announcements and 24-hour media, this week we take a look back at the news coverage surrounding President Obama's 2011 Tucson shooting address to highlight the differences (and the inherent, possibly surprising similarities) in how presidents choose to communicate. For instance, note the emphasis on emotional appeals and appeals to patriotism. Sound familiar? It's a tactic most presidents have used to bolster their more rational arguments and to persuade the audience in the moment. However, one may feel that they more saturated with emotional appeals now in 2018 than in the past.}
The January 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona at a constituent meeting by suspect Jared Loughner that killed six people and wounded thirteen others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, prompted President Obama to give a memorial speech eulogizing the victims in the wake of the shooting as is common in times of national crises or tragedies (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2 & 6; OPS, 2011; Pol 304 Lectures). However, the subsequent resulting news coverage of the speech produced diverse framings of the story, a product of constraints on journalists from multiple actors in the political information system as well as editorial favoring of certain themes that may or may not then be used to produce a slight ideological slant based on the news sources’ either mass or niche audience (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2, 4, & 5; Pol 304 Lectures). In this paper, I will analyze the framings of the Tucson speech in the context of these journalistic constraints that necessarily lead to manifestations of the four informational biases in four articles by the Washington Times, CNN, FOX, and the New York Times, with a brief conclusion examining the implications of my findings for the informational needs of democracy.
To begin with, I will examine the similarities between the four articles in terms of the general informational biases of fragmentation, personalization, dramatization and authority- disorder bias manifest in the language and construction of the reports concerning President Obama’s speech (Bennett, 2007, p. 40-41). In all of the articles, there was a common thread of dramatization and personalization biases rooted out of the officialdom bias (the President as a federal official having the power to define a situation), with the President’s speech being highlighted in highly emotional and patriotic terms (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 4 & 5; OPS, 2011). In each report, the journalists’ language is highly patriotic, with such themes touched upon in the classic authority-disorder bias plot as (very easily) constructed from the President’s speech: the villain (suspect Jared Loughner), the heroes (both the surviving victims of the shooting, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the fallen), and the need for national unity and healing in the wake of the shooting (Bennett, 2007, p. 43-44).
Patriotism aside in the context of a national tragedy or crisis, the articles began to diverge from the transcript of President Obama’s speech that called for national unity (including remembrance of the victims, touting those who survived as heroes, and calling for a less divisive political practice) among numerous broad themes, to emphasize particular aspects of the speech (OPS, 2011). Before we get into that analysis, it is important to note that the transcript itself of the speech was largely taken in emotional terms, and the investigation of the shooting was largely left out, perhaps contributing to the fragmentation biases each news organization presented in their reports on the speech (OPS, 2011).
Looking first at the news articles that seem to have more of a political lean, one can see the more obvious signs of journalistic choices in taking the bits and pieces of the story and putting them into a coherent, summarized narrative. While all articles had common threads and elements, certain articles more heavily featured an emphasis on one story narrative over another, as hinted at in the content of the title and opening paragraph (Pol 304 Lectures). Starting with the FOX (“Obama Urges a National Dialogue of Healing at Arizona Memorial Service”), New York Times (“Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics”) and Washington Times (“Obama: May Good Come of Arizona Tragedy”) news articles, we see immediately in these titles the differences in aspects of the event being covered compared to the CNN article. With the FOX, New York Times, and Washington Times articles, the aspect of the speech that is the most emphasized is from the perspective of, as FOX puts it “tempering the political discourse now polarizing the public square” and in memory of the shooting victims “usher in a new era of civility in their honor” (FOX, 2011, p. 1; NY Times, 2011, p. 1).
Whereas those reporters focused on the political partisanship side of the story narrative, in which the shooting is portrayed almost as a byproduct of a toxic political system with powerful partisan figures clashing together on a daily basis as a backdrop, in the CNN article, the focus from the outset is the strong invocation of a standardized theme of hope or healing (Bennett, 2007, p. 41). However, there are implications hinted at in all of the articles, with the New York Times article manifesting it the most with the following line: “While the tone and content [of the speech] were distinctly nonpolitical, there were clear political ramifications to the speech, giving Mr. Obama…a chance to try and occupy a space outside of the partisanship or agenda” in which the President was noted as “setting aside a partisan health care debate to honor the lives of the victims” (NY Times, 2011, p. 2).
The Washington Times article pushes a bit further with an authority-disorder bias despite the underlying skepticism (and slight ideological bias in use of this bias to implicitly call the President out on the quality of his leadership), saying that President Obama was “under high expectations to calm the [partisan] tensions” as “healer-in-chief,” but to the journalist perhaps failed in “keeping his distance from an often acerbic debate over whether heated political rhetoric by supporters of the tea party movement (perhaps hinted at by the mention of Sarah Palin’s assertion of the media’s “blood libel” or charges that her rhetoric could have helped motivate the shooting) played any role in the attack on the Democratic lawmaker” (Washington Times, 2011, p. 1). Going further into the article, further ritual adversarialism of journalists towards elite actors “not telling the whole story” is seen when the journalist talks about a “raft of evidence” concerning how the suspect was supposed to have targeted Giffords and then contrasting it with a line from the President’s speech that “…none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack” (Washington Times, 2011, p. 2; Pol 304 Lectures). Similar skepticism is hinted at in the FOX article, even with its “national healing” narrative focus, with the line that “Obama bluntly conceded that there is no way to know what triggered the mass shooting” and that a Pima County Sheriff (not mentioned in the other articles) was applauded after he attributed the motives for the shooting to “extreme political rhetoric, bigotry, and hatred” (FOX, 2011, p. 1-2). However, for the most part, while the other articles emphasized the authority-disorder bias as well by standardized mentions of need for healing and national unity post-crisis, the Washington Times especially makes heavy use of this particular slant (CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011, NY Times, 2011; Washington Times, 2011).
Although, to a degree, the other articles touched upon similar storylines as well, illustrating the varying degrees of the four informational biases as commonplace reporting characteristics resulting from a variety of factors, such as journalistic dependence on elite sources like the President (officialdom bias) for verifying and approving particular realities and tellings (Bennett, 2007, p. 41, 196-197; Pol 304 Lectures). However, the CNN article exhibited the highest degree of most of the informational biases to me, especially in respect to the officialdom bias, even more than the New York Times, which highlighted the President in a more positive light (CNN, 2011; NY Times, 2011). In fact, looking at the CNN article, from the outset, the focus is on Gabrielle Giffords and the First Family’s visit to her hospital (as first mentioned in the story highlights) and her “opening her eyes” and almost seems to dip the furthest into what could be termed “soft news” that only marginally informs the public about political issues, especially in the context of a national crisis (CNN, 2011, p. 1; Graber, 2011, p. 113-125). Throughout the rest of the article, the journalist chooses to heavily lean on the personalization and dramatization biases, citing the President’s comforting Scripture passages regarding standing against evil along with the happy and miraculous recovery of Representative Giffords (CNN, 2011). Essentially, the CNN article was dismissive of the other aspects of the President’s speech, and it isn’t until the bottom of the fourth page that the suspect, Jared Loughner, is mentioned briefly in one line and the outside details of how many perished in the shooting and where is given a few paragraphs before the Jared Loughner line (CNN, 2011, p. 4-5).
Sprinkled throughout the report and until the end is the use of language such as “hope”, “tragedy,” and “Gabby opened her eyes,” with the journalist turning Giffords into a recognizable symbol of a hero surviving against all odds and the victims (as in Obama’s speech) as innocents who represented “the best of America” (CNN, 2011). While readers may have gained some passing knowledge if they read far enough into the CNN article about the outside circumstances surrounding the shooting vaguely hinted at in the President’s speech, such as who was killed, who survived, the suspect, where the shooting took place and the Westboro Baptist Church’s planned picketing of a shooting victim’s funeral (although most only read the first paragraph, necessitating the inverted pyramid structure in which the journalist puts the most important and succinct “facts” first), ultimately they would come out confused about the event as a whole (Bennett, 2007, p. 191; CNN, 2011). Thus, the CNN article manifests the fragmentation bias as well, focusing more heavily on the human drama and tragedy aspects it picks up from the speech that the media generally utilize as easily communicable frames to complement their need for summarization and simplicity (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2).
All in all, when taking a look at all of the articles together, all of them manifest significant fragmentation bias, with CNN heavily focusing on the President’s visit to recovering Representative Gabrielle Giffords (CNN, 2011). If we regard the goal of news to report the relevant “who, what, where, when and why” circumstances of events, the articles, depending on the news source the audience member attended to provided a similar, yet different story narrative (Pol 304 Lectures). The audience either got a narrative of the speech focusing on the authority-disorder bias (can the president fulfill his duty to be “healer-in-chief” and reassure a nation?), the standard hope and healing narrative in which Representative Giffords was especially utilized, or the partisanship narrative, in which the aspects of the speech highlighted in the article focused on the toxicity of partisan rhetoric (i.e. political conflict), even while some articles mentioned that the President was trying to be as nonpolitical as possible in his speech (CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011; NY Times, 2011; Washington Times, 2011). The latter political partisanship theme to me especially was indicative of ritualistic journalistic adversarialism in which individuals such as Sarah Palin, the President, the shooting suspect, various individual Congress members and even the Westboro Baptist Church spokeswoman are featured as players in the stories by all four news organizations (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2, p. 196-197).
Simultaneously, the latter characters are critiqued by the journalists for their possible roles in the conflict as well as positioned more personally in order to produce an overriding conflict narrative (i.e. attribution of responsibility for political rhetoric especially in the FOX, New York Times, and Washington Times articles) rather than focusing on the underlying institutions or processes at play behind the speech and shooting (Bennett, 2007, p. 196-197).
In essence, the articles covering President Obama’s Tucson Memorial Speech may have provided some hints towards underlying systemic problems (maybe political rhetoric and certain political movements, etc.), but as a whole, the journalistic tendency to summarize based on limited information and produce an interpretation of an event (a story) that people can easily connect with, probably left those same people with very incomplete understandings as to all of the themes that the President chose to utilize in his speech as well as the relevant actors involved in and surrounding the event (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2; CNN, 2011; FOX, 2011; NY Times, 2011; OPS, 2011; Washington Times, 2011). For example, while the articles necessarily covered the speech, there were differing degrees of coverage, with many articles sandwiching in between the President’s quotes mentions of outside figures, such as Sarah Palin and other necessarily positioned characters maneuvered in to seem adversarial and create that formulaic political drama narrative (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 2). This perhaps signals that the news media are perhaps not fulfilling their needs to inform citizens about underlying processes and issues that may impact their critical decision-making processes about their democracy in the long run, a criticism especially echoed by Bennett (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 1-2; Pol 304 Lectures).
Nevertheless, one needs to consider the pressures exerted on journalists by influences from the rest of the political journalistic system and that some of the articles I examined above are exercising some degree of hopeful independence from elite narratives in the variety of outside information they pulled in and resulting diversity in some narrative frames (Bennett, 2007, Ch. 1-2, 5; Pol 304 Lectures).
Works Cited:
Bennett, W. Lance & Graber, Doris A. (2007). News: The Politics of Illusion (6th ed.). New York: Pearson Longman.
CNN Wire Staff. (2011, January 13). Obama: ‘The Hopes of a Nation are Here Tonight.’ Retrieved April 1, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/12/arizona.shooting.victims/.
Cooper, Helene, Zeleny, Jeff, & NY Times. (2011, January 12). Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/us/13obama.html?_r=0.
FOX News. (2011, January 13). Obama Urges a National Dialogue of Healing at Arizona Memorial Service. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/12/obama-visits-rep-giffords-ahead-memorial-service.html.
Graber, Doris. (2011). Media Power in Politics (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
McDougal, Stephen. (2016, January-April). Pol 304 Lectures: Media and Politics. Lectures presented at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse.
Rowland, Kara and Washington Times (2011, January 13). Obama: May Good Come of Arizona Tragedy. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from https://uwlax.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/content/3163152/viewContent/19978729/View.
White House Office of the Press Secretary. (2011, January 12). Remarks By the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Retrieved April 2, 2016, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson.
Friday, June 8, 2018
Presidential Speech-Making: A Flashback to President Obama's 2014 State of the Union Address
{While words don't necessarily translate into action, a president's words nonetheless reveals a great deal about how they communicate with and see the world, as well as their policy goals. In an age of 140-character policy announcements and 24-hour media, this week we take a look back at President Obama's 2014 State of the Union address to highlight the differences (and the inherent, possibly surprising similarities) in how presidents choose to communicate. For instance, note the emphasis on emotional appeals and appeals to "American values." Sound familiar? It's a tactic most presidents have used to bolster their more rational arguments and to persuade the audience of the importance of their vision for America. However, one may feel that they more saturated with emotional appeals now in 2018 than in the past.}
President Obama’s State of the Union address earlier this year revealed the President’s policy agenda. Throughout his speech, he uses a multitude of methods to persuade the public and Congress to act on the issues he gave the most priority to. From strategy that paints his Republican opponents as not working for the American people to statistics regarding the economy, touching stories about the lives of everyday Americans, and many more. It remains to be seen if the pressures he applied to Congress, other political actors and the public will yield the results he desired. Many of the issues he highlighted in his speech fall under three main categories: the economy, education investment, and foreign policy.
The economy, a top priority issue for many Americans and a common theme underlying his speech, is the first topic the President addresses. First, he credits the success of the economic turnaround to his bailout of the automobile companies with the authority of numbers painting the picture of the recovery, which he also uses to justify further programs he wishes to initiate, like investment in infrastructure (including alternative energy infrastructure investments that would save “$4 billion a year” from going to the fossil fuel industry) and the raising of the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Throughout the speech, he seems to tie a lot of policy issues into the improvement of the economy, including further proposals to reform the tax code, bills to address the growing income equality of the middle class and the rich, while working to keep the budget deficit under control. He also makes a pitch for the Affordable Care Act. The President warns that without further bipartisan action on reforms to things like the housing market and tax code, another economic recession could really hurt American families. In effect, he puts a lot of pressure on Congress to set aside the partisanship (which he references when he mentions the government shutdown) and work with him on these policy issues, while giving emotional appeals to the American Dream and equality of opportunity. At one point, he then jabs at Congress by saying, “So get those bills to my desk. Put more Americans back to work.”
Likewise, further into his speech concerning educational reform programs that he would like to see, he again uses language that acknowledges the frustrations that the economic recovery and subsequent events have instilled in many Americans. More importantly, he tells Americans not to lose faith in the American Dream, another appeal to values, and launches right away into proposals that would attempt to address education inequality, provide more student aid for those going to college, and get students early on to be interested in science, engineering, and mathematics. The latter proposal, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics curriculum (STEM) goes hand in hand with a revamped high quality preschool program he would like to see expanded. President Obama believes that investment in our nation’s children through these policies will help the economy thrive in the long run, create more jobs, and put America ahead of competing countries like China and India. He claims that the extra money saved from enacting these policies can go towards the infrastructure projects he mentioned earlier. In the same way, he puts the onus on Congress primarily, while subtly pressuring the industries and philanthropist organizations themselves to form closer partnerships with him on the interrelated areas of education and the economy. Overall, a common theme I noted besides the appeals to the American Dream, is that he wants to invest in the future of America, through all these proposals, and that Congress is standing in the way of further American innovation.
Later in his speech, he thanks all the American service members for their sacrifices, while painting an optimistic picture of the future when he mentions that around 60,000 service members are home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately, this ties in to his point, which he emphasizes many times in this section of the address: there are other ways to fight America’s enemies overseas (e.g. Al Qaida) in Syria, Yemen, Mali, Somalia and Iraq besides committing ground troops. President Obama alludes to his foreign policy in advocating limited, specifically targeted measures, such as airstrikes in Syria, while partnering closely with NATO. The previous hints that he is listening to American fears about another draining campaign and is shifting the burden for further military action onto NATO, while trying to get more attention to a subtler kind of terrorism at home in cyber-attacks. Despite all of these emerging threats, the President expressed confidence in fighting more battles through diplomacy and cites examples of this in action, such as with Iran and its nuclear program, the Israel and Palestinian negotiations, the drawing-down of Syria’s chemical weapons stash, and even humanitarian democracy building. Again, he arouses a strong sense of patriotism as a rallying force for Americans to support the troops coming home to civilian life.
He concludes his address with a story concerning an Army Ranger, Cory Remsburg, who nearly was killed by an IED in Afghanistan. Personifying the American determination in the face of hardship, Cory rebounded from his injuries, parallel to the idea that America, like Cory, is capable of rebounding and thriving against all odds.
In conclusion, President Obama makes key policy pitches in the areas of the economy, education, and foreign policy. He uses subtle, loaded language to pressure groups like Congress and to convey that he is always listening to the American people. Meanwhile he instills in Americans a sense of patriotism with a constant reminder of the principle of equal opportunity that constitutes America’s foundation. His reliance on emotional appeals over numbers and facts is powerful and effective in emphasizing American triumphs while instilling in his audience his vision for a future in which America stands as an example for the rest of the world in constant innovation. However, only time will tell if his policy-pushing strategy succeeded and will yield legislation he favors.
Works Cited:
White House Office of the Press Secretary. (2014, January 28). President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/28/president-barack-obamas-state-union-address.
President Obama’s State of the Union address earlier this year revealed the President’s policy agenda. Throughout his speech, he uses a multitude of methods to persuade the public and Congress to act on the issues he gave the most priority to. From strategy that paints his Republican opponents as not working for the American people to statistics regarding the economy, touching stories about the lives of everyday Americans, and many more. It remains to be seen if the pressures he applied to Congress, other political actors and the public will yield the results he desired. Many of the issues he highlighted in his speech fall under three main categories: the economy, education investment, and foreign policy.
The economy, a top priority issue for many Americans and a common theme underlying his speech, is the first topic the President addresses. First, he credits the success of the economic turnaround to his bailout of the automobile companies with the authority of numbers painting the picture of the recovery, which he also uses to justify further programs he wishes to initiate, like investment in infrastructure (including alternative energy infrastructure investments that would save “$4 billion a year” from going to the fossil fuel industry) and the raising of the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Throughout the speech, he seems to tie a lot of policy issues into the improvement of the economy, including further proposals to reform the tax code, bills to address the growing income equality of the middle class and the rich, while working to keep the budget deficit under control. He also makes a pitch for the Affordable Care Act. The President warns that without further bipartisan action on reforms to things like the housing market and tax code, another economic recession could really hurt American families. In effect, he puts a lot of pressure on Congress to set aside the partisanship (which he references when he mentions the government shutdown) and work with him on these policy issues, while giving emotional appeals to the American Dream and equality of opportunity. At one point, he then jabs at Congress by saying, “So get those bills to my desk. Put more Americans back to work.”
Likewise, further into his speech concerning educational reform programs that he would like to see, he again uses language that acknowledges the frustrations that the economic recovery and subsequent events have instilled in many Americans. More importantly, he tells Americans not to lose faith in the American Dream, another appeal to values, and launches right away into proposals that would attempt to address education inequality, provide more student aid for those going to college, and get students early on to be interested in science, engineering, and mathematics. The latter proposal, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics curriculum (STEM) goes hand in hand with a revamped high quality preschool program he would like to see expanded. President Obama believes that investment in our nation’s children through these policies will help the economy thrive in the long run, create more jobs, and put America ahead of competing countries like China and India. He claims that the extra money saved from enacting these policies can go towards the infrastructure projects he mentioned earlier. In the same way, he puts the onus on Congress primarily, while subtly pressuring the industries and philanthropist organizations themselves to form closer partnerships with him on the interrelated areas of education and the economy. Overall, a common theme I noted besides the appeals to the American Dream, is that he wants to invest in the future of America, through all these proposals, and that Congress is standing in the way of further American innovation.
Later in his speech, he thanks all the American service members for their sacrifices, while painting an optimistic picture of the future when he mentions that around 60,000 service members are home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately, this ties in to his point, which he emphasizes many times in this section of the address: there are other ways to fight America’s enemies overseas (e.g. Al Qaida) in Syria, Yemen, Mali, Somalia and Iraq besides committing ground troops. President Obama alludes to his foreign policy in advocating limited, specifically targeted measures, such as airstrikes in Syria, while partnering closely with NATO. The previous hints that he is listening to American fears about another draining campaign and is shifting the burden for further military action onto NATO, while trying to get more attention to a subtler kind of terrorism at home in cyber-attacks. Despite all of these emerging threats, the President expressed confidence in fighting more battles through diplomacy and cites examples of this in action, such as with Iran and its nuclear program, the Israel and Palestinian negotiations, the drawing-down of Syria’s chemical weapons stash, and even humanitarian democracy building. Again, he arouses a strong sense of patriotism as a rallying force for Americans to support the troops coming home to civilian life.
He concludes his address with a story concerning an Army Ranger, Cory Remsburg, who nearly was killed by an IED in Afghanistan. Personifying the American determination in the face of hardship, Cory rebounded from his injuries, parallel to the idea that America, like Cory, is capable of rebounding and thriving against all odds.
In conclusion, President Obama makes key policy pitches in the areas of the economy, education, and foreign policy. He uses subtle, loaded language to pressure groups like Congress and to convey that he is always listening to the American people. Meanwhile he instills in Americans a sense of patriotism with a constant reminder of the principle of equal opportunity that constitutes America’s foundation. His reliance on emotional appeals over numbers and facts is powerful and effective in emphasizing American triumphs while instilling in his audience his vision for a future in which America stands as an example for the rest of the world in constant innovation. However, only time will tell if his policy-pushing strategy succeeded and will yield legislation he favors.
Works Cited:
White House Office of the Press Secretary. (2014, January 28). President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Retrieved September 28, 2014, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/28/president-barack-obamas-state-union-address.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Book Review: Gregg Easterbrook's "It's Better Than It Looks"
Is the world actually more better off than the dumpster fire the news and social media would have us believe? Journalist and an American Academy of Arts and Science academic Gregg Easterbrook argues that we should be more optimistic rather than pessimistic about the state of affairs today. In his latest work It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear, he posits that major indicators in environmental and human health, pollution, conflict and democracy today are overall positive and continuously improving despite serious challenges humanity faces, such as the looming menaces of potential nuclear war and climate change.
Making a case against what Easterbrook terms the increasingly toxic "declinism" of our times, the collective anxiety that the world is in a tailspin, Part 1 first guides readers through the major issues of our time that many fear could be a potential avenue for the end of civilization: agriculture, health, the economy, conflict, technology and democracy (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 210). One by one, Easterbrook makes a case for why such scenarios of apocalypse are unlikely to occur. Starting with agriculture, Easterbrook shows how fossil-fueled Green Revolution technologies like improved fertilizers and irrigation techniques along with genetically engineered crops have "decoupled crop production from acreage," meaning that feeding a projected 12 billion people by 2100 is possible because less land is now needed to produce more food (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 136). In other words, we have enough food to feed ourselves and more. Coupled with reducing food waste and improvements in food distribution, the world can adequately provide for the growing human family.
Most importantly, because food production and overall land use are the cornerstones of civilization, Easterbrook sees the fruits of the Green Revolution as critically important in other important positive trends: reduced conflicts over land as controlling vast swaths of acreage in the past meant wealth and a means to feed one's population; the decline of malnutrition, especially in the developing world; the dramatic reduction in extreme poverty (as of 2015, 10% of the global population still lives in destitution); increased educational prospects; improving lifespans; and overall betterment of living conditions across the board (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 19). The vehicle driving the collective uplifting of the world to Easterbrook is primarily that of market forces, seeing it as the better way to incentivize production and provision of goods and services necessary to modern society, like food, improved medicines, vaccines that help to eradicate or ameliorate the plagues of the past that are communicative diseases (and may also help the spread of democracy in its tendency to reward change, new ideas, and innovation while providing the necessary production base for the defense of free society). This holds true for worrying trends of violence (which have shifted largely from inter-state to intra-state conflicts), environmental problems like climate change and increased resource consumption (i.e. aiding in the more efficient use of resources as populations expand), and technology (for example, the market trend towards ever-safer and more fuel-efficient vehicles and safer and less resource-intensive methods of production).
But isn't laissez-faire economics by itself not a cure-all for society's ills? I had that doubt throughout the book. Easterbrook acknowledges that market failures like increased income inequality, monopolies, and other negative outputs like greenhouse gas pollution still happen and that the system isn't perfect, necessitating some regulation to help guide the world to prosperity and more open, economically-interdependent societies. Nevertheless, I felt in Part 1 that Easterbrook was putting too much stock in the latter, while seeming to gloss over many of the thorny issues that remain today (income inequality, climate change) in favor of seeing civilization as always getting better. In other words, yes, the world isn't so bad and many indices of wellbeing are up and continue to go up, but that doesn't make the remaining issues that less harmful to the people that suffer from them, even if they are as Easterbrook asserts, temporary blips in the upward arc of civilization.
In Part 2, Easterbrook redeems himself on the latter somewhat where he explains why declinism, the opposite of putting on rosy glasses and viewing the world, has become so prevalent and puts forward more detailed policy prescriptions for the challenges raised in Part 1. News flash: this current age of pessimism has come before, but has been augmented by the spread of social media (which can be a great way to spread incorrect and unverifiable information as fact); a tendency of the media to highlight the rare instances of societal downsides; educational trends towards atoning for the past sins of slavery, imperialism and other forms of slaughter and exploitation by emphasizing those past failures without highlighting at the same time the positives of society; increased distrust of a distant Washington; and the twisting of minority group acknowledgement into the claiming by those minorities and co-option of by threatened majorities the "coveted status of victimhood" that can easily turn from being about a legitimate process of achieving reparations to dangerous us-versus-them group-blaming (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 204). Then, this latter collective pessimism can make it that more difficult for people to see the solutions for challenges like climate change, nuclear weapons and income inequality, which to Easterbrook are everything from market-based systems of carbon trading to a Universal Basic Income (UBI), to a heavier emphasis on diplomatic processes like the creation and enforcement of international and bilateral treaties.
Overall, while I did not agree with all of the potential reforms suggested by Easterbrook in It's Better Than It Looks, such as a heavy reliance on a carbon-trading system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without other regulations or enforcement measures, and his rosy view of the magic of market forces (of course, somewhat reined in by regulative reforms, but still somewhat untethered), he makes an overall good point that we all need to take a collective deep breath. Yes, the spread of problems we have facing us today are daunting, but not as illusorily daunting as the constant barrage of negative news and social media accounts would have us believe. Of course, this overcoming of these surmountable, yet intimidating obstacles is possible through (again) a collective rolling-up-of-sleeves and carrying out of plausible reforms that can create the solutions to our problems, or what Franklin Roosevelt termed "great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems" (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 281).
Yes, that quote that Easterbrook leaves the reader with is maddeningly broad and seems like a mere platitude, but it makes sense: the problems we face are complex and require equally complex and creative solutions. But first, we all need to stop an unnecessary degree of collective panic and choose to view the world and its betterment as something worth continuing to fight for.
Works Cited:
Easterbrook, Gregg (2018). It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons For Optimism In An Age of Fear. New York: PublicAffairs.
Making a case against what Easterbrook terms the increasingly toxic "declinism" of our times, the collective anxiety that the world is in a tailspin, Part 1 first guides readers through the major issues of our time that many fear could be a potential avenue for the end of civilization: agriculture, health, the economy, conflict, technology and democracy (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 210). One by one, Easterbrook makes a case for why such scenarios of apocalypse are unlikely to occur. Starting with agriculture, Easterbrook shows how fossil-fueled Green Revolution technologies like improved fertilizers and irrigation techniques along with genetically engineered crops have "decoupled crop production from acreage," meaning that feeding a projected 12 billion people by 2100 is possible because less land is now needed to produce more food (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 136). In other words, we have enough food to feed ourselves and more. Coupled with reducing food waste and improvements in food distribution, the world can adequately provide for the growing human family.
Most importantly, because food production and overall land use are the cornerstones of civilization, Easterbrook sees the fruits of the Green Revolution as critically important in other important positive trends: reduced conflicts over land as controlling vast swaths of acreage in the past meant wealth and a means to feed one's population; the decline of malnutrition, especially in the developing world; the dramatic reduction in extreme poverty (as of 2015, 10% of the global population still lives in destitution); increased educational prospects; improving lifespans; and overall betterment of living conditions across the board (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 19). The vehicle driving the collective uplifting of the world to Easterbrook is primarily that of market forces, seeing it as the better way to incentivize production and provision of goods and services necessary to modern society, like food, improved medicines, vaccines that help to eradicate or ameliorate the plagues of the past that are communicative diseases (and may also help the spread of democracy in its tendency to reward change, new ideas, and innovation while providing the necessary production base for the defense of free society). This holds true for worrying trends of violence (which have shifted largely from inter-state to intra-state conflicts), environmental problems like climate change and increased resource consumption (i.e. aiding in the more efficient use of resources as populations expand), and technology (for example, the market trend towards ever-safer and more fuel-efficient vehicles and safer and less resource-intensive methods of production).
But isn't laissez-faire economics by itself not a cure-all for society's ills? I had that doubt throughout the book. Easterbrook acknowledges that market failures like increased income inequality, monopolies, and other negative outputs like greenhouse gas pollution still happen and that the system isn't perfect, necessitating some regulation to help guide the world to prosperity and more open, economically-interdependent societies. Nevertheless, I felt in Part 1 that Easterbrook was putting too much stock in the latter, while seeming to gloss over many of the thorny issues that remain today (income inequality, climate change) in favor of seeing civilization as always getting better. In other words, yes, the world isn't so bad and many indices of wellbeing are up and continue to go up, but that doesn't make the remaining issues that less harmful to the people that suffer from them, even if they are as Easterbrook asserts, temporary blips in the upward arc of civilization.
In Part 2, Easterbrook redeems himself on the latter somewhat where he explains why declinism, the opposite of putting on rosy glasses and viewing the world, has become so prevalent and puts forward more detailed policy prescriptions for the challenges raised in Part 1. News flash: this current age of pessimism has come before, but has been augmented by the spread of social media (which can be a great way to spread incorrect and unverifiable information as fact); a tendency of the media to highlight the rare instances of societal downsides; educational trends towards atoning for the past sins of slavery, imperialism and other forms of slaughter and exploitation by emphasizing those past failures without highlighting at the same time the positives of society; increased distrust of a distant Washington; and the twisting of minority group acknowledgement into the claiming by those minorities and co-option of by threatened majorities the "coveted status of victimhood" that can easily turn from being about a legitimate process of achieving reparations to dangerous us-versus-them group-blaming (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 204). Then, this latter collective pessimism can make it that more difficult for people to see the solutions for challenges like climate change, nuclear weapons and income inequality, which to Easterbrook are everything from market-based systems of carbon trading to a Universal Basic Income (UBI), to a heavier emphasis on diplomatic processes like the creation and enforcement of international and bilateral treaties.
Overall, while I did not agree with all of the potential reforms suggested by Easterbrook in It's Better Than It Looks, such as a heavy reliance on a carbon-trading system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without other regulations or enforcement measures, and his rosy view of the magic of market forces (of course, somewhat reined in by regulative reforms, but still somewhat untethered), he makes an overall good point that we all need to take a collective deep breath. Yes, the spread of problems we have facing us today are daunting, but not as illusorily daunting as the constant barrage of negative news and social media accounts would have us believe. Of course, this overcoming of these surmountable, yet intimidating obstacles is possible through (again) a collective rolling-up-of-sleeves and carrying out of plausible reforms that can create the solutions to our problems, or what Franklin Roosevelt termed "great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems" (Easterbrook, 2018, p. 281).
Yes, that quote that Easterbrook leaves the reader with is maddeningly broad and seems like a mere platitude, but it makes sense: the problems we face are complex and require equally complex and creative solutions. But first, we all need to stop an unnecessary degree of collective panic and choose to view the world and its betterment as something worth continuing to fight for.
Works Cited:
Easterbrook, Gregg (2018). It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons For Optimism In An Age of Fear. New York: PublicAffairs.
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