Think About It

When I was at the gym working out the other day, I looked up to one of the many TV screens in front of me and read an interesting question, “When did ‘shock politics’ replace telling the truth?”. My initial reaction was to yell at the screen, “Well, you should know because you were a part of starting it.”; but I refrained and just stewed about how often media outlets that include “news” in their titles have been reduced to “opinion” networks. Interestingly, my inner contempt led me to wonder something similar. My question isn’t as much about “when” as it is about “how”. How have we gotten to this point – and, oh by the way, I am not just targeting the media, there is enough blame to go around to a bunch of us. As I reflected on the lack of cooperation between competing opinions, I got to thinking about two concepts: hyperbole and partisan positions. I believe that we have applied hyperbole (using exaggeration to make a point) so often that we start to believe our own rhetoric.