ALFRED KORZYBSKI AND THE MEDIA

Picking up the idea in the last Neurons about Korzybski and Commercialism— the problem that made the commercialism morbid and therefore unhealthy is that it promotes shallow values. Korzybski also described commercialism as primarily infantile— suitable for children, but not for adults. This would also apply generally to the media. Mostly the media has a morbid influence on our lives and does so because it is addressed to that which is most childish and infantile in us.

1) Bad News. We all know it, “Bad news sells.” Yet we all also can hardly resist it. The complaint is pretty universal, “Why can’t they show some good news?” But good news isn’t news. What happens everyday, especially what we can pretty much count on and depend on— is not news and doesn’t interest us that much. “Flight #302 landed safely at the airport.” “Schools across the state opened their doors at 7 am and teachers taught their classes.” But let there be bad news — train wreck, shooting at a school, storms, etc. and that’s news. It grabs our attention and concern. Yet a daily diet of one catastrophe after another, one scandal after another, one conflict, war, shooting, etc. after another — and we end up with a false and highly distorted picture of the world.

2) The Fearful. Like bad news, what is fearful and frightening, what triggers anxiety and distress, what scares and upsets, and what is dangerous or threatening—that’s news. This in fact, is what most of the bad news focuses on. The problem is that 90 percent of the things we worry and fret about never happen. Yet we can spend an outrageous amount of time focusing on what might be or could be. Actually, a great deal of the news today is not about bad news, it is about potential bad news. So-called new reports focus on “trends” about what could or might be if... And so they play out all sorts of what if scenarios that raises anxiety, fearfulness, and distress.

3) The Sensational. If that holds true for good news, it also holds for the normal. What’s normal is much less interesting, engaging, and newsworthy from what is abnormal, out of the ordinary, and sensational. Yet once again, a steady diet of the sensational creates a false-to-fact portrait of the world.

4) Linear and Binary. The most typical kind of thinking that drives the bad news, the fearful, and the sensational— is linear thinking and binary or dichotomous thinking. This is the thinking that posits the options as either X or Y; one or the other. This eliminates every alternative in- between the two as well as any other alternative. It over-simplifies things and attempts to create a black-or-white world. The truth is that we live in a systemic world— a world that is organized and structured within systems. The truth is that within almost every issue there are multiple

variables that play a role.

5) The Over-Simplified. We have a bias for simple answers. “Could you repeat that in a more simple way?” Yet because a system is a set of inter-related variables as well as contributing factors, restraining factors, supporting factors, amplifying factors, etc., we inevitably have to take all of these into consideration if we’re to understand the system. We also have to think long-term rather than short-term. How will various consequences will complicate things over time?