Karl Brodecker raises some interesting thoughts in yesterday's FML.
I think that politicians in general do what the voters want them to, and try
to avoid controversy. Those that fail at this tend not to stay in office
very long, and the 'best' ones are those that can take a complex subject and
draw clear distictions, or take a controversial one and draw out points to
build a consensus which will please the majority of their constituants over
the long term. None that I have ever known of have been willing to advance
a proposal without public support for it though.
Thus to get anything done, whether is legalization of domestic
ferrets, or a living care center for BFFs, it first has to have the support
or at least the tacit approval of a majority of the constituants. Delays
are build into the system to ensure that people become aware of proposed
changes in the law, how it potentially effects them, and to have a chance to
respond. A law passed without this political 'process' and permission
giving doesn't have nearly the same level of public support of one that has
been through it.
Changing public opinion is really the hardest of all to do, probably
because people in general have so much to do, and so much to worry about.
Many things are just seen as true, or normal, and unworthy of further
consideration. "Don't touch electricity!", "Don't play in the Street",
"Beware of squirrels and other small animals, which will bite you and may
spread disease, (particulary rabies)." "Be especially wary if a small
animal seems friendly, and approaches a human because this is not 'normal'."
Mental shortcuts such as these help us all get through the day
without life becoming a hopeless jumble of unrelated facts. These rules are
learned for most of us before speech, and thus they are based much more on
emotion than they are on logic.
Thus the problem. To reach most people at this level you have to
first build a little trust and reduce fear. Then you want to introduce
enough contradiction into their thoughts to give them cause to re think what
they have learned. Finally you need to reinforce their new thinking by an
example, or testimonial of another, and them reward them for their new
thoughts and leave them feeling good about this new revelation. It is hard
to do. Humor helps a lot, anger none at all, and in any event it can be a
slow and frustrating process.
Concerning the press, it has also been said that one of the reasons
for some of the disatisfaction today is that there is too much unrelated
information floating around. There are too many unrelated 'factoids' out
there that people don't know what to do with and are left to draw their own
conclusions. Far from needing just more unbiased reporting of facts, we
are in fact, in much greater need of some analysis, some way to put some
perspective on all this information. We need to have it debated, and have
some tentative conclusions (bias?) drawn for us so that we can follow the
reasoning and offer our own thoughts.
Re the BFF discussion. There is a most interesting new (6/95) book
out called "When Elephants Weep" by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson & Susan
McCarthy [Delacorte Press], that adds quite a bit of perspective. They
explain the very strong bias against 'anthropomorphism' or the attributing
of human thoughts and emotions to non human animals, and then go on to
describe many many examples from elephants to spiders that can really best
be described only by the use of such concepts. They also show how 'human'
emotions can also be described in terms of adaptation, efficiency, survival
of the species, and such.
All of this won't come as much of a surprise to those of us who play
with and talk to our fuzzies every day; but it's nice to know that those who
are accustomed to thinking of biology in terms of classification, cells, and
chemistry may be coming around to this view as well.
[Posted in FML issue 1227]
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