FORT FRANCES, ON REFLECTION: Gossip, rumours and political ads
September 20th, 2008
CPTnet
20 September 2008
FORT FRANCES, ON REFLECTION: Gossip, rumours and political ads
by Gene Stoltzfus
[The following reflection by CPT Director Emeritus Gene Stoltzfus has been edited for length and clarity. People wishing to see the original piece will find it at http://www.gstoltzfus.blogspot.com/]
I cringe when I watch the gossip in political advertising that impairs a candidate’s ability to function in the public sphere. The gossip may be about Muslims, persons of African descent, liberals, evangelicals, Iraqis, Israelis, or politicians. I struggle to find ways to not allow this gossip to define my world, with its simplistic concepts of good and evil.
A culture of gossip surrounds us, reinforced by gossip columnists who masquerade as reporters, political advertising, and news systems. In this environment, we can feel trapped, isolated, and cut off from our own best judgments.
After I returned from Viet Nam, I became more attuned to the hold gossip has on my own society. In April 1968, during a speaking tour across the United States, I arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on the day Dr. Martin Luther King was buried. All of my speaking engagements had been cancelled so I passed some time in the lobby of the YMCA where I had a room. There, I heard from local people that King was a communist (this was almost the worst thing you could say about someone at the time). Everyone in the room had some “evidence” to present. One person had a relative in the police. Another claimed to have studied King’s life. A third quoted authoritative family members. I was shocked at the unity of their conviction about King’s communism. No one in the room correctly identified King as belonging to a long line of Christian reformers, black and white, reaching back before the dawn of American democracy whose faith, conviction, and method were deeply rooted in the gospel.
So how do you answer gossip that impugns people as compulsive leftists, conservative desperados, or an unkempt people in their private lives?
One of the best responses to gossip is naming the falsehood and supplying correct information even when you know it may have little immediate effect. In those moments, you live in the faith and confidence that a word of truth does not return empty. Even one sentence may be enough.
Election season with its off-key choir of negative ads can turn us all into little people who reflexively counterattack or become whiners. We are tempted to polarize with all the good being on our side and all the bad out there somewhere else.
The answer will not come from polarization. It will come from collaboration across boundaries. Now is the time to hold to our vision of something better in our personal and political lives. Now is the time to reject the gossip in political advertising that shortchanges truth, and undermines democracy. Saying NO to gossip is a skill that begins as a gift within each of us. The NO is the first step. What follows is hard work. As we compost our old gossip habits, we will slowly and painstakingly create space and natural fertilizer for the newer, healthier ways of relating in our personal and political lives.
CPTnet
20 September 2008
FORT FRANCES, ON REFLECTION: Gossip, rumours and political ads
by Gene Stoltzfus
[The following reflection by CPT Director Emeritus Gene Stoltzfus has been edited for length and clarity. People wishing to see the original piece will find it at http://www.gstoltzfus.blogspot.com/]
I cringe when I watch the gossip in political advertising that impairs a candidate’s ability to function in the public sphere. The gossip may be about Muslims, persons of African descent, liberals, evangelicals, Iraqis, Israelis, or politicians. I struggle to find ways to not allow this gossip to define my world, with its simplistic concepts of good and evil.
A culture of gossip surrounds us, reinforced by gossip columnists who masquerade as reporters, political advertising, and news systems. In this environment, we can feel trapped, isolated, and cut off from our own best judgments.
After I returned from Viet Nam, I became more attuned to the hold gossip has on my own society. In April 1968, during a speaking tour across the United States, I arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on the day Dr. Martin Luther King was buried. All of my speaking engagements had been cancelled so I passed some time in the lobby of the YMCA where I had a room. There, I heard from local people that King was a communist (this was almost the worst thing you could say about someone at the time). Everyone in the room had some “evidence” to present. One person had a relative in the police. Another claimed to have studied King’s life. A third quoted authoritative family members. I was shocked at the unity of their conviction about King’s communism. No one in the room correctly identified King as belonging to a long line of Christian reformers, black and white, reaching back before the dawn of American democracy whose faith, conviction, and method were deeply rooted in the gospel.
So how do you answer gossip that impugns people as compulsive leftists, conservative desperados, or an unkempt people in their private lives?
One of the best responses to gossip is naming the falsehood and supplying correct information even when you know it may have little immediate effect. In those moments, you live in the faith and confidence that a word of truth does not return empty. Even one sentence may be enough.
Election season with its off-key choir of negative ads can turn us all into little people who reflexively counterattack or become whiners. We are tempted to polarize with all the good being on our side and all the bad out there somewhere else.
The answer will not come from polarization. It will come from collaboration across boundaries. Now is the time to hold to our vision of something better in our personal and political lives. Now is the time to reject the gossip in political advertising that shortchanges truth, and undermines democracy. Saying NO to gossip is a skill that begins as a gift within each of us. The NO is the first step. What follows is hard work. As we compost our old gossip habits, we will slowly and painstakingly create space and natural fertilizer for the newer, healthier ways of relating in our personal and political lives.