Understanding Political Division: Outrage Tactics, Cognitive Science, and Building Bridges with David Beckmeyer

Have you ever found yourself getting riled up by political headlines or divisive social media posts? You're not alone. Tune in as I share my personal journey from falling for these outrage tactics to understanding the deeper mechanics behind them, thanks to the wisdom of David Beckmeyer. Beckmeyer, an expert in political polarization and media literacy, unpacks the psychological triggers that keep us hooked on controversy and offers practical advice for breaking free from this cycle.

Political division has skyrocketed over the past decade, affecting relationships and communities on a profound level. From my own experience of engaging in online political squabbles to launching this podcast, we explore how events like the election of Donald Trump have intensified societal rifts. David sheds light on the cognitive science behind identity politics, explaining why we so vehemently defend our beliefs and how this tribal mentality disrupts rational discourse. Together, we discuss the need for empathy and understanding to bridge these divides.

We also delve into the historical and social factors that have fueled this polarization, tracing back to the 1950s and 60s when political parties began to clearly differentiate themselves. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and the rise of partisan media further exacerbated these divides, creating echo chambers that amplify our biases. David and I offer strategies for fostering civil discourse, like deep canvassing and critical thinking, emphasizing the importance of genuine listening and trust-building in today's fragmented world. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that aims to make political discussions more constructive and less confrontational.

Chapters

• 0:01 Discerning the Age of Misinformation
• 7:37 The Rise of Political Division
• 17:35 Navigating Misconceptions and Tribalism
• 25:14 The Rise of Political Identity
• 31:37 Navigating Partisan Media and Information Overload
• 40:55 Building Trust and Understanding Perspectives
• 47:43 Nurturing Critical Thinking and Adaptability

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Discerning the Unknown Critical thinking in the age of misinformation. Your host, ryan Peterson. Hello once again to you. I am Ryan Peterson. This is Discerning the Unknown and I'm going to start things right off the bat with making a confession to you. I may have fallen for it, I may have done something which is exactly against what I try to advise on this show, and I think I have seen the light. I had an enlightenment, had an epiphany. If you will, and we are going to talk about that today, I'll tell you the story real quick before we get to our guest. His name is David Beckmeyer, but Tuesday we had primary elections. I hope you were involved in them, at least to vote and bring your voice forward.

Speaker 1: 1:06

But I am in Northwestern Wisconsin and I've got family in North Dakota. I was born and raised in Wisconsin and so dad is from North Dakota, right on the border area there in North Dakota, minnesota, and so I grew up a fan of Minnesota sports, the state of Minnesota, and so I grew up a fan of Minnesota sports, the state of Minnesota. We're right on the edge here in Wisconsin and I've fallen in love with the state of Minnesota. I went to college in Minnesota. I enjoy Minnesota sports. I was born this way. I can't help it. So I was following some Minnesota news on Tuesday night and some Minnesota voting results and I came across this guy who won his primary and I looked into his platform a little bit because I heard some things that the announcer on TV said when he won and this guy made me mad. So far, up to this point, I've said, okay, well, we'll believe what we want to believe. I don't agree with this and I do agree with this and certain things. And I've gotten into myself. I've posted funny memes online that share my views and we try to be funny, we try to be smart, we try to be profound and let everybody else know what we think.

Speaker 1: 2:36

But the more I looked into this guy who won, I thought, oh my God, how can anybody buy that? And it really worked myself up. He's a defiant guy, he's divisive in a lot of things that I was against, and it was working me up so much, honestly, that I had to take a break and I thought I'm not going to sleep tonight. This was Tuesday night. I'm not going to sleep tonight if I keep thinking about this guy. So I thought, okay, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to prepare for my show on Thursday and I looked at my guest's website, I looked at David Beckmeyer's website and, oh wow, it took a couple of minutes but I realized I was doing exactly what he encourages us not to do. And I think what this guy in Minnesota was trying to do is be divisive.

Speaker 1: 3:35

But it occurred to me, being an old radio guy. It occurred to me that remember the shock jocks of the 90s? Why did they get popular? Well, they get popular.

Speaker 1: 3:44

People said they listened to him because the ones who liked him wanted to hear what he's going to say next. Howard Stern, perfect example. Whether you like him or not, howard Stern perfect example. People wanted to know what he would say next. And the people who didn't like him? They listened to him because they wanted to know what he would say next. And people bought it and he became, you know, the most massive radio host in the world.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Well, I think that's what this guy is trying to do. I think that's what a lot of politicians are trying to do now. They want, they want you to react to what they say, and somebody's going to buy it. Somebody's going to say to somebody else can you believe this what this guy said and somebody is going to say you know, maybe I think that way too, or I think the guy's funny, or I like him. He says what's on his mind, or it's a different. You know, it's a different slant. Whatever, they're working the psychology of us to gain popularity and I thought, especially for today, I'm not going to say his name, I'm not going to say his views.

Speaker 1: 4:43

If you want to listen to him, go to it, be my guest, listen to him. You know your views, you know your beliefs and opinions and I, more than likely, just like you're not going to change my opinions. More than likely, unless I want my opinion to be changed, and I open up to that. I'm not going to change your opinion either, and you probably don't care what I think I'm. You know, by expressing my opinion, I'm not going to convince you to change yours. The only way you can do that is by, you know, taking steps to learn yourself and being open-minded to changing an opinion if you feel you need to. But our opinions, of course, are based on our background, our environment, our knowledge, and we form them ourselves.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So I realized by looking at David Beckmeyer's website that I think I fell for it. I was falling for not necessarily fake news, but exactly what candidates I think today want us to do, and that is pay attention to them. And that's what we're going to do. And I'm trying to find my proper information here to get some information up to you. But I'm just going to go into David Beckmeyer and I'll do the introduction.

Speaker 1: 6:12

He is an expert in political polarization and media literacy. He focuses on reducing toxic outrage and promoting civil disclosure. Insights from social psychology and communication studies that's what he presents. He helps listeners understand the mechanics behind our outrage media. He offers practical strategies for fostering unity and understanding in a divided world and, more than ever, I think that's what we've come to today. So I'm glad to welcome David Beckmeyer, host of the Outrage Overload podcast to Discerning the Unknown. So, david, right off the bat, I have to thank you. I think you might have saved me from some embarrassment here because I was convinced for a little while. You know, I've got a platform, I do a podcast, I'm on a crusade, I'm going to be the anti that guy and tell everybody that he's wrong and I'm right and I'm going to save the world. Well, I don't think that's reasonable. I don't think that was realistic. So what happened to put you on this path to defining exactly what outrage overload is and take a stance on it?

Speaker 2: 7:29

Yeah well, first of all, thanks, thanks, it's a pleasure to be here with you, ryan. Yeah well, it's exactly that kind of thing, right. So you know, I was a tech guy before and I and kind of looking at things to do. But then if you look at this past history of like the last 10 years or so I mean it goes before that, but in my personal life you sort of you know you sort of had the election of donald trump that kind of ramped up the temperature and started people kind of being more serious about I don't know, just taking everything really seriously and really dividing people and we would disconnect. We're disconnecting with good friends in real life, we're disconnecting with people on social media.

Speaker 2: 8:12

So I saw that going on in my circles around me and then also in my own personal life I had a lot of sort of triggers I don't know if I want to say triggers, but sort of straws that broke the camel's back kind of thing and I was that guy out there sort of crusading and getting in Twitter fights and things like that as well, and at some point, when you're just seeing people disconnect with their family and close friends over this kind of stuff, and I really started to say what's going on here?

Speaker 2: 8:38

We need to look at this.

Speaker 2: 8:39

This is not really healthy for us individually, it's not healthy for us as a society, and that really got me to look into this whole situation and I found out a lot about it and I sort of settled on a podcast being a good way to really be able to deep dive.

Speaker 2: 8:54

I'm sort of a science nerd and science geek, and so it let me kind of do that. That gives me an opportunity to meet and get to know you know, know as basically a layman get to know scientists in this field, researchers, other experts, and really learn a lot about it and take listeners on that journey too, together where I can sort of be, you know, the one that's going to ask the questions we all would like I could ask. Maybe we're afraid to ask, right, you're like, I'm not afraid to ask the dumb questions, and so we we bring that out and present this information not academic to academic. We're not doing a two-hour lecture. This is just a couple of folks talking in a coffee shop kind of situation and we can kind of just understand some of what's going on and so, yeah, a lot of it is just what's the kind of things you're talking about, like what is going on here and what's behind all this?

Speaker 1: 9:39

And you know, obviously it's not good for our society, it's not good for us individually yeah, I've said before I I'd like I almost wish we could go back to the days where politics was boring and not necessarily entertainment. Um, it's like, uh, sports teams. Now we, we, you know, we've always gotten so passionate about our sports teams and and. But I think we could put a a divide there. It was on Sundays, it was when we were watching TV.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Sure, we'd fly our flags and wear our T-shirts and stuff, but now that's moving into politics and it's more ingrained in our lives. It's probably a much bigger part of our lives. It affects us more because it's affecting our's, affecting our jobs, our lives, our lifestyle and so much of it that. Uh, yeah, we're really getting passionate about this. And what also do you see? I've tried to evolve this show a little bit, or add the the notion of what we think and why we think it, and we get so fierce about our opinions and and, like I said, we're probably not going to change each other's opinions, but we'll dig in so much to defend an opinion that we have, and I think a lot of rational people are digging in with opinions that other people can say how can you have that opinion? How can you think that? Why do we fight so fiercely to defend our thoughts and opinions.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff, different threads we could pull on there, but you know, I think there's a lot of. My show has an aspect of sort of the cognitive science behind that, but that's not, you know, the main topic of it. It's one of the sort of vectors we go down and one of the threads we pull on. But there's a lot going on there and, you know, with some of this is when it comes to our politics, it's it's because we started to believe these narratives, right, we, we have really made this part of our identity. We've made it part of our moral um identity and it becomes important that way. And I love how you started the show saying you were sort of quote unquote, fell for it or falling for it, and I think that's important to note that we all fall for it. Like it works. That's why they do it Right, and so it's an easy thing to kind of, you know, find yourself falling into, because there are aspects of it that give us that near term, short-term, you know, neurotransmitter boost, right, we get this happy juice, and so it feels good in the short term often to do this stuff.

Speaker 2: 12:11

We make somebody mad it. It reinforces our moral choices right. So we feel like we're on the moral superior path. So we actually like to see somebody showing us the other side doing bad things, because it makes us feel better about our position and our and our and and the and the choice that we made, the tribe that we're in, and so a lot of it comes back to all that kind of psychology. You know, you got the tribal nature. That's very something, it's something innate in humans. That's why we are here, right, we this really good at getting together and organizing as into groups and kind of us versus them. That's just part of our psychology. Like we, that's our, that's our evolutionary niche, right, so it's very ingrained in us and and it's and it's very easy to fall into, you know, as the water flows downhill, it's, it's a, it's a, it's the place that we go, naturally. So it takes a lot of active participation to do that.

Speaker 2: 13:01

So that's one of the reasons, big, big reasons, why you know, one of the there's a scientist and I'm forgetting her name right now, but but she has, like her version of the social science version of of EMS equals MC squared, which is that social death is greater than physical. It has a greater, is more fearful. We're more afraid of social death than we are of physical death, and that's because, you know, losing your tribe meant physical death or worse, right, you know, meant a lot of torture before physical death. So losing your tribe was is such an important thing in the way our brain works. We have some we're hardwired for that that those parts of our brain are like in the front, like when you do the neuroscience about this, those pathways like take priority, right, so that fear of being ostracized from your tribe just kicks in. And so you have to actually activate the other part of our brain, the frontal lobes, and the sort of slow, fast, slow thinking part. If you've kind of researched some of that, that you have to activate that slow thinking part that looks at this in a more thoughtful way, and that's a little bit hard to do. Naturally it's easier to fall in to that other thing and it does feel good in the moment, but you know it has these long-term consequences that are much worse, right You're? You're frustrated hourly. If you you had that Twitter fight, it felt good for five minutes. Two hours later you go. Well, that doesn't feel good at all. Now I can't sleep, this kind of stuff, right. So you know, you have to kind of kick in that deeper part of your brain to remember that. Oh yeah, I'm not going to like this in two hours and what do I get out of it?

Speaker 2: 14:34

To your point about convincing people, that's a whole other thread we could talk about for a while is you know the ways we go? We don. You know the ways we go? We don't know anything about convincing people. First of all, we're terrible at it, you know, and all of our assumptions about what we think works and we weren't like why don't they get it? I gave them the facts. Why don't they just think the way I think, right? Uh, you know, and that's exactly the opposite of what's going to happen, right? So we could pull out any of those threads. I'm sorry, I kind of rambled there yeah, oh, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 14:58

I think they're thoughts we've all had. I think you know, with conflict resolution and stuff, I think the first thing you know any expert will tell you is the way you can be sure not to calm somebody down is to say calm down. And so I think, yeah, presenting them with facts. They've probably already got in their mind that those facts are made up. You know, we're convinced that they're true. It just we're equally as passionate as the other one is to bring out the other side.

Speaker 2: 15:32

Yeah, and the big challenge and I'm not a podcast that's out here saying everybody has to take some centrist, moderate position on their issues, that kind of thing center centrist, moderate position on their issues, that kind of thing um, you know, you can simultaneously have strong beliefs and also be rational about how you think about those release beliefs and how you think about your opponents. Right, be more empathetic. Um, heidi and and guy burgess have been sort of working in this space for many years and they've got a substack called Beyond Intractability, a bunch of other projects that they work in, and they have this idea of pragmatic empathy, which is this idea that I can understand the other person's beliefs without adopting them or embracing them, right, and getting to that point where, you know, so one of the big problems that fuels this toxic polarization are a lot of its misperceptions about our opponents, about our those would have that have different views, and that's happened because, like what you were talking a little bit about, the politician at the beginning of the show, this is, you know, these narratives. We tell ourselves these narratives about how evil the other side is, that it's no longer a situation about they have bad ideas, they have bad intent, um, and not only are their ideas bad, but just they don't even have. We're not even on the same page about what's what's the right way to do this, what's a moral, what's moral and what's not. And so once you've gone down that path, this is a is a really dangerous path. I mean, if you look in history, these are the paths that take you in bad places. This is the places that, frankly, make violence start to sound reasonable. They make other extreme things start to sound reasonable because you just keep taking this higher and higher moral ground.

Speaker 2: 17:17

And so that's a big problem is that the perceptions are bad, like we make a lot of assumptions about somebody. They wear a certain hat, they wear a certain shirt, a certain pin, and then we automatically bam, bam, bam, bam bam. And there's a lot of research about this. They must therefore believe all these other things that we've sort of been told about. These bad people that think this other thought and those misperceptions are just getting worse and worse for all these reasons. I mean, you talk about the filter bubble idea, the. You know, we live in our bubbles, we all this. We're not if you look at sort of the Putnam book, the bowling alone thing. We're not out there in the community anymore. We're able to isolate. If you look at COVID, like that was another driver for my whole podcast we were locked, we're in lockdown, getting in more fights about that. Getting in more lockdown, getting in more fights about that, getting in more, you know, and again we're and we're isolated in our little world again even more.

Speaker 2: 18:10

And so all those things contribute to building this bigger and bigger misperception about your political adversaries and, combined with this, taking it in as a moral, as a identity attribute that I am. I am part of this tribe and so many of the times when we think we're taking a position on an issue or we're really just siding with our tribe, there's a lot of studies that show things like if you take these same issues and you say, well, this was presented by Donald Trump or something, even if they're liberal issues, people will go, oh, those are terrible issues, I'm not for that. And vice versa. You can flip that around and and we do this all the time. So you know there are all of us have our issues, and that's kind of what I like to focus on is like I'm not asking you to stop having the issues you care about, but think about when it's tribal and when it's not.

Speaker 2: 18:58

And you know, this is one reason the podcast is called Outrage Overload, because outrage is not a bad thing. You know, maybe there's things we should be more outraged about, right. But the problem is we sort of have that dial cranked up to 11 and we're just outraged about everything. And then the whole function of outrage which, if you look at our, you know sort of one of the evolutionary biologists talk about how you know, maybe the role of outrage was sort of as activation, like that's how we activate as a community to go do things. But if you're dialed up to 11 all the time, it completely loses that function. And if you're only sort of action or liking things or commenting on Twitter, that's not real activism, that's not really doing anything.

Speaker 2: 19:41

A lot of people just call it that's just more awareness, like you're making your position, people aware of how you stand, but you're not changing anything. So you know, in order to be like, people think I'm telling people on my podcast that well, no, you got to go agree with the other side, necessarily, you may find agreement. That's fine. I'm not. I don't run against finding common ground. If that's where things go, that's fine, I'm not. I don't run against finding common ground if that's where things go, but I'm not necessarily saying we always have to do that, but you'll. You'll be a better advocate for your position if you understand the other side better. Sure, right, and this is a problem that now we don't. We think we understand the other side and we actually don't.

Speaker 1: 20:20

Sure, there's definitely something to be said for being open minded and but but yeah, like you, like you said in the beginning that we can all have we all have opinions. You know, we shouldn't try to suppress our opinions. It's just, I think, how we express ourselves in, uh, dealing with other people's opinions. You know, they're not necessarily stupid, they're not necessarily crazy for thinking what they think. It's just the the other side of what I'm thinking. And so, yeah, posting those memes sometimes and yeah, I've done it, I've done it before and you know, saying that they're crazy and this is why they're crazy, and and all the number of times I've seen that Sam Elliott one saying you're a special kind of stupid, you know that.

Speaker 1: 21:02

I don't get that anymore. You know it just if people are thinking they're profound or if they're trying to express their own wisdom or knowledge. I don't know if it really shows other people that you're smarter than them. I think it just shows them that you want to be insulting.

Speaker 2: 21:21

Yeah, and, like I said, I mean a lot of this stuff does have its little short-term benefit, like it feels good in the moment and so, and doing that kind of thing once in a while it's not I'm not saying you know that's not not terrible, but making that like a really big part of your life and that you're doing that a lot. You know you're, you're, you're suffering from that, you know you're not sleeping well, you're agitated and anxious and you're not actually any better at supporting your causes. So a lot of this is trying to be more reasonable in thinking about your opponent's position, because the politicians, the news media, there's all these incentives for people to present things and frame things in the worst possible light, because they want to get you afraid and upset, because those are the emotions that you act on. So everybody's doing that to you all day long, whether it's on social media, whether it's on on the news, whether it's even your friends are doing it. Frankly, especially if you're kind of in a bubble, you guys get together and I bet you start ranting about the other side, right, and it's not getting. You're not convincing anybody, you're all. You all already agree. You're not really getting anywhere and, like I say sometimes that can feel good in the moment, but in the end you just get more mad. Now I'm even more mad at these people and you're building these false perceptions of the other people too, because you don't really typically question any of those things.

Speaker 2: 22:38

Right and the reality. You know all this talk about fake news and things like that and you know I do talk about misinformation, disinformation on the show and critical thinking and stuff. But the more likely the real world picture of that that's more reason, more accurate is most Most of the times you're just not getting a good, a full picture, so it's often not straight out lies, although those do happen. It's more likely just some parts of that were left out, like that were probably context that would have been important to know and so. But because we like it. You know this is cognitive biases. I'm sure you talk about that on your show a lot too, is that you know we sort of. You know go with it, it sounds good, it's what I like. This is the answer I kind of want. So I don't really check it that closely and so I I bought into this next thing.

Speaker 2: 23:24

That's, you know, usually an exaggeration of some sort or a framing of the problem that's not giving you the full picture, and you know this is where you know we can really improve. You know our a. You can lower your sort of anxiety and fear about the world because there won't be as many things to be afraid about. And again, yes, there are valid concerns that you should be very concerned about.

Speaker 2: 23:48

But you know, many times, a lot of the things we're really, really excited about, really mad about, we're gonna like, when you actually drill down a little deep, okay, maybe it's not quite that bad, maybe the real picture of that is not as bad as it as they're making it out to be. And that's the big challenge that we're faced with today is how do you deal with that? Because we're inundated with this information and a lot of it is bad. And again, I'm not really saying everything's a lie, but there are a lot of places where maybe there's more context that you're missing, especially if you're kind of focused in an information bubble. And it's a challenge, I'm not saying it's easy.

Speaker 1: 24:24

Yeah, yeah. Where do you think a lot of this started? Because it just seemed like so quickly. All of a sudden I'm seeing videos of people in Target with the most racist and unbelievable views and they seem pretty proud. It's making them feel good in the moment. Where do you think a lot of this started? I'm not saying blame one side or the other really, but where do you think it started?

Speaker 2: 24:51

Yeah, I mean it's a great question because you know this has been accelerating for sure. But of course you know a lot of this type of messaging is not new. Like if you've studied journalism or history you know, know people were doing some of these things many years ago but it's been a progress. You know that just keeps kind of ramping up. You know there was an active effort goes back even to like the 50s and 60s where the parties actively began to try to polarize on issues. So they wanted to kind of because they want to kind of differentiate themselves right, because voters were. Voters were sort of saying you're too much alike I can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans and so they actually actively sort of tried to start separating things on purpose and then it just started to naturally happen a little bit. And then that has just kind of continued on over the past decades and there's been a big ramp up to that and this transition to making politics more of your identity was sort of a side effect of that.

Speaker 2: 25:51

That. Either I don't know they really it was some plan, big magical plan, or it was just kind of that's how it played out. But people then began to become much, take much more identity and politics became a piece of their life, that became a bigger identity than their church and these other things that used to be ways that you identified yourself. And politics has just moved into that slot. Like you mentioned, sports before, like this idea of we identify as a sports fan, that's a way healthier thing than identifying as really strongly on political issues often, because identifying too strongly and being too certain on your political issues can take you into a kind of a dark place and take the whole country into a dark place. And so it's not bad to have these things you identify with. But maybe politics or going too far in politics is not the best choice to make that such a big part of our identity. And that shift started, you know, over time. Like I say, there's not any one point, but a big shift came when there was an active effort that was kind of a carryover from some other history going up to that.

Speaker 2: 26:58

But there was really a big shift in the early 90s that we're going to start separating on more sort of cultural, more really trying to make it an identity politics type thing, and that was a big shift that accelerated this trend that was already going on but accelerated it even more. That now it really resulted in this idea that not only do you have the wrong ideas if you're in the other party, but you're a bad person if you choose the other party. And that that shift is is fairly new, that's in the last few decades, and you know that's a that's a dangerous shift. I mean, if you look again historically, that kind of thing happens. It's easy to now start dehumanizing. Even just saying that if you wear this hat you're a bad person is already dehumanizing someone Right. But and it literally lets you start and you're seeing this on both sides that people dehumanize the other side and feel justified in it and it just keeps creating that certainty that I'm right, you're wrong, and so that's a fairly new phenomenon. And again, you know, I think it was maybe a side effect of all this other trying to separate the party and create differentiation. So the voters kind of saw that and then that kind of translated more and more into this. We've accepted it as identity and it's like I say you read some of these other books on this.

Speaker 2: 28:17

It's been just a societal change as well, where there aren't as many other things that we go do as a community event anymore. People are doing church, less other types of community activities. The bowling alone title gives you one of them. We're not out there in bowling leagues anymore, right, things like that. We're not doing that kind of thing as much, so we're not spending as much time in the real world with other people.

Speaker 2: 28:41

We don't have a national service. A lot of of people talk about a national service, and I'm not necessarily talking about the military, but where a national service would would sort of force some of this, where now you're going to go meet real people, we've instead gone the other way. You know, we're separating into enclaves even in our lives. Like we'd go. I'm going to choose my home based on, well, how is it more red or more blue in that neighborhood? Yeah, right, and so even less and less of this meeting people from the other side and seeing that they're actual, real people with this. They have kids that they want to take to school. They want to drive on roads that don't have potholes.

Speaker 1: 29:12

You know, like they, we have so many things in common that we don't appreciate sure, I I have a theory on, and you you started to touch on it just a little bit with that answer, but when a lot of this started and what kind of, ramped up a little bit. And again, I'm an old radio guy from the late 80s 90s and we were always concerned with giving the other side in the early 80s and before that, giving the other side equal time. That was the Fair doctrine. And the fairness doctrine was repealed in 1987. So since that point we could have one TV network focusing on one side, another TV network focusing on the other side and 100% of their content was one-sided. They didn't have to have the other side on anymore for five minutes and give them another five minutes. And with the repeal of that in 1987, we got the talk radio and the first and most popular one was Rush Limbaugh and boom, he got big.

Speaker 1: 30:18

And I think there was some divisiveness there and I think it's really been going on in that way since. But I mean to say we should bring the fairness doctrine back now that we're beyond that. You know that's, you know, here we are on the internet. Yeah, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think that that's a bit of where it started, and part of it, I think, because you know, ronald Reagan was a movie star and fell into that where if some TV station showed a movie he had to give two hours to the other candidate. And so I don't know if it was an intent that he thought I want the country to be more divided, but I think he wanted to put people in his circumstance, you know, give him a little bit of an edge, because, yeah, it was kind of stupid at the time. It did seem weird, if you know, if you're in a movie, then then you've got to give your opponent two hours of airtime, you know. But I think the repeal of that really had something to do with this.

Speaker 2: 31:17

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people talk about that. I, I, I think, with fragmentation of media, you know that was going to happen anyway, like implementing the fairness doctrine with the internet and you know, youtube and things like that would sort of how would you even do that, right, yeah, so I don't think it'll, but yeah, I mean, certainly that enabled some of this. But we should also realize that partisan media is not new, right, I mean, we lived in a world of partisan media for a long time I was going to say centuries, but maybe not quite that long. But it was pretty normal, since the founding of this country at least, that most towns had partisan media, right, but they usually had a diversity there. But they would have one newspaper tended to focus one way, another newspaper tended to focus maybe another way, and that was, that was the norm. We had that unique little time when we all sort of harken back to walter cronkite and the three networks and. But you know, that was actually the exception, right, that was actually not the rule, because you had yellow journalism, you had all this other stuff, if you look historically right. But a big change also that I think we have to really remember here was that the speed and the diversity of information now has really created something that our brains are not prepared for. Right, we're way ahead of ourselves in the technology, but compared to our sociology, right in our psychology, we don't have an answer to that as humans right now. And so you know, fairness doctrine or not, the speed at which information gets out, there is now a huge change. Right, that's a big change.

Speaker 2: 32:58

I mean, you had television and, like you say, radio, that's just be the light it is, but it doesn't go viral. In the same way, like when I heard Rush Limbaugh, how many people could I tell that tell that day? Right, I could tell three or five people or something. Right now, you know, you hear a joe rogan and I can go tell another 10 000 people. Who can go tell another 10 000 people? And even if I'm only telling 100 people, that's still 100 times 100 times 100. That can get everywhere in literally a few minutes. And that's a very new thing for us. And it's a new thing for journalism to deal with, like you know, real journalism, like you're you're from radio, you kind of understand stand things like editors and you know stuff like that that a guy on youtube doesn't really get that editor. I don't need that. I I'm my own editor and that this whole concept of of media journalism, ethics and things like that.

Speaker 1: 33:48

This is how do you apply all that to this world that's so Unconsolidated how do you think either politics or the news reporting on it will change from the from this point forward?

Speaker 2: 34:09

Yeah, I mean from this point forward. Yeah, I mean, um, you know we're we're stuck in a situation now that you know the media incentives now are really pretty bad. Um, you know, and I don't, the only answer to that may be like answers that probably are going to be really hard to do and some people won't like which is, which is more public funding, um, and and if you want a fairness doctrine type thing, it's probably going to have to be funded with public money or something. Maybe that someone's got a smarter idea than I do and someone will come up with a way. Because if you look at some private stuff I want to make an exception here that if you look at, like this Sunday I think it's called the cbs um sunday, I think it's called if you look at the cbs sunday show, I mean that's a really good show.

Speaker 2: 34:52

It's not just politics, they talk about a lot of things, but they go into, they show local stories and they have various things and it's really good journalism and it's a private thing, that's a corporate thing, that's not put out, that's not publicly funded, and it's really high quality. So there are examples, you know, and how I don't know the details of how that cbs sunday show can survive. You know, is it a lost leader for something else? Do they just do it because they want to and they spend that money. But at least it demonstrates, you know, that you can have good quality stuff, um, in a from a private corporation. So so that's a piece of it is in this incentive structure. You know it's a push to the bottom and this is and it's that's where it's going to always go.

Speaker 2: 35:33

If in social media you're in, you, you create a machine that's incentivized for clicks and likes and engagement, well, what's that going to get you right? I mean, that's going to get you to the bottom of the barrel. And and you're seeing that the same thing in television news. And you're seeing it the same thing in television news and you're seeing it even online. Now, everybody's competing for that eyeball, everybody's competing for that middle minute of your attention. Until that changes, I don't see this getting better and it's going to be. You know, we're going to have to be the ones that put the pressure on that to say we don't want that stuff anymore. You know, and that's a big ask sure.

Speaker 1: 36:11

Do you see that happening? I mean, are there other podcasts like yours? Uh, do you recommend certain websites or books or something? Where do we start to get a better idea?

Speaker 2: 36:23

yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that's been. You know where you get some encouragement and some hope that you know I've got a little show that's become kind of a you know a, a little bellwether in this, in this universe, if you will, and I've managed to bring on people from all over the world. The renowned, world-renowned scientists that you know are working on this problem. Some of the smartest minds we have are looking at this problem from that perspective. Also, practitioners are working in this space. So, yes, that's the big thing, and you're also seeing things like you know some of this, a lot of this polling showing that you know what is it. The independents now are larger than both Republicans and Democrats combined, and I think that's a message saying, you know, we're not happy with this left-right status quo. Now, you know reality. A lot of those people vote tend to vote frequently with one side or the other, but I think the fact that they're not they don't want to put that label on themselves says something about like they're not comfortable with how things are going, and I think that's a big one too. So I think a lot of those things are in place. If I was to say where to start one too. So I think a lot of those things are in place. Uh, if I was to say where to start, obviously my website has a lot at. Outrageoverloadnet has a lot of resources, um, but there's organizations like starts with us, uh, that are doing a lot of work in this space.

Speaker 2: 37:37

I'm a moderator for a group called crossing party lines, which hosts conversations, uh, where people can share their views, um and across the spectrum, and it's uh, as moderator, my role isn't to inject ideas or to kick anybody out for their ideas. It's just to keep everybody, you know, following the rules about being respectful and how they present their, their ideas. But you're allowed to bring whatever idea you want to the table within those, within those rules. So, and that's a great way, like those conversations, there's braver angels as other people doing that kind of work. Those are great conversations, great things to participate in, even if you don't say a lot. But you'll probably want to say something once you get in there, because you hear a lot of views. You want to counteract, but it's really great to see real people expressing their real views, bringing wherever they are at to the table. So, in other words, however informed they are, whatever news sources. They're using the real people coming to the table with these views and so those conversations. They host a two hour conversation, I think, several times a month and you can go online and do that with Zoom and, again, like I think I mentioned in the beginning, getting more informed about the views of others that differ from you and seeing that they're real people, that how they got there, like they use logic. It wasn't just they saw this in the story and bought right into it. They're using their own logic. They're using their own. They're using the same things we all use. It's the same process to come to a different conclusion and you can see that they're regular people doing this. To come to a different conclusion, and you can see that they're regular people doing this, and that's really helpful and also just understanding better.

Speaker 2: 39:11

If you are an advocate and want to go think about, well, how would I change somebody's mind that thinks like that? Those are a couple of good places to start. Maybe Starts With Us would be one good place. They're doing a lot of work in this space and something like Crossing Party Lines or Braver Angels, if you want to actually kind of get involved in expanding your horizon a little bit. I'm not saying you go change, you don't have to change your mind. If you want to, maybe open and changing your mind, but nobody's asking you to change your mind. But even understanding the others, where people are coming from that have differing views, is really helpful.

Speaker 1: 39:41

I like that that you've stressed for for this whole time that, yeah, we're going to have opinions, we're human, we're going to have opinions, we're human, we're going to have opinions, we're going to want to express those opinions, but what do you think the best way to, uh, to handle? You know, we're sitting down talking with family or at the picnic or wherever we might be, um, and somebody brings up an opinion, you know, maybe a conspiracy theory or something that just doesn't click with us or we really disagree with. Is it important to let our opinion be known at that point, or how do we do that then?

Speaker 2: 40:18

How do we deal with that? Yeah, I mean, it depends a bit on the context and the relationship as to how that might proceed and what the best way to deal with it is. But attending something like braver angels talks or crossing party lines talks and things like that can really help you build some of those skills and understanding. A lot of the uh crossing line, crossing party lines also does a lot of workshops where they sort of talk about the idea of a lot of psychology and techniques and things like that behind a lot of this. That are also free and you can. You can also take those that'll. That'll help give you some tools for those kinds of conversations.

Speaker 2: 40:55

Um, but the so, so if you have so a couple of aspects there are, you know, the first step to any conversation like that is sort of the trust building. So a lot of that is listening and listening like legitimately listening, not pretending to listen and and being okay. Um, you know, with some views that you might not agree with and not necessarily immediately doing a lot of pushback, um, sort of first try and then probing questions can help right Instead of saying, well, that's wrong, here's all a bunch of facts that'll automatically go off the rails. So that's not the thing to do, but probing questions like how did you come to believe that, things like that. And if you're actually interested in changing minds, there's a whole thing you can think about. Again, this is after you've built some trust. You know there's a whole, there's whole things about like you can look look up deep canvassing and street epistemology. And because it's something you said at the very beginning about changing minds is you don't change anyone's mind anyway.

Speaker 2: 41:56

People change their own mind. So all you can do is be the sort of facilitator to let them, you know, kind of take themselves there if they're going to go there, right, or see if they're open to go there. You can't change their mind. All you can do is let them give them the space to do that. So I would say first thing is, try to spend some time listening. If you can participate in something like Crossing Party Lines and Bravery Angels, that'll give you a lot of background and build up your skills for this. And you know, know, and it's sort of like your opinion is only fair to share if you've let them share their opinion. Right now, not everybody's going to be prepared for you to share your opinion. That's just a reality. But you really don't earn that until you've let them share their opinion, sure?

Speaker 1: 42:44

I, I think you know to bring it down to a different level, maybe outside of politics even you know when we want to, when we want to. Well, let me back up here. You said that you like talking with experts too, because there's undoubtedly people smarter than you and me, so we have experts on our shows to explain, maybe in layman's terms then, what, what people are dealing with today. On a psychology level, I think of it like like I'm getting closer to retirement. You know I've bought houses in the past and I go to a realtor. I go to a financial expert when I'm, when I'm looking at you know, my finances. I don't know everything about that, so I need to ask an expert, a financial planner, and they will tailor, you know, a plan to my situation, what I've gone through.

Speaker 1: 43:36

You know what my work history has been the last several years, what I want to do in the future, what applies to me. And I think with politics, you know we got to understand it's the same with people that they have opinions based on what has applied to them, their background, their life, their knowledge and everything. That's something where nobody goes up to a realtor and says you're an idiot Because you think you've got to sell houses, whatever. That's exactly why politicians have commercials and go on the campaign trail to let people know what they're all about. But yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're ignorant or stupid because of their background and knowledge, and we certainly don't need to go shooting them.

Speaker 2: 44:24

Well, and this is what we're talking about avoiding doing.

Speaker 2: 44:28

Yeah, and I think this highlights you know, a lot of people talk about things like the post-truth. We live in a post-truth world, but the reality is we live in a post-trust world. We just trust different sources and different things and then that creates that separate reality, right, because we're trusting different sources and there's a crisis in, you know, trust in institutions right now. And that's a crisis in trust in institutions right now. And that's a big concern that I have and some is justified, like the institutions sometimes get things wrong and maybe haven't done a good job communicating all the time, and so that's a big, big challenge.

Speaker 2: 45:03

One of the biggest challenges we face is restoring those institutions and restoring trust in those institutions, because we live in a society of norms really.

Speaker 2: 45:13

I mean, you know we think we live in a society of laws, but we really live in a society of norms, and once those norms have kind of started to collapse, you know it's just doesn't, it doesn't end well, and we're kind of headed there now with with a lot of that. So, so and I, you, you, talk about critical thinking a lot and that's one of my little pet peeves, a little bit about how so many people talk about critical thinking, but then when they really get through and they explain their process, they're sort of doing anything, but they're really sort of doing Dunning-Kruger and they're doing a bunch of other things, or they're just flat out being skeptical of everything and not believing anything, which is exactly the worst thing you can do, right, because we have to. We can't not believe anything, right? That's how really bad ideas come to the forefront is by not believing anything. So, yeah, there's a crisis of trust right now and we're just trusting different sources and that creates a. That's part of this divide, sure, sure.

Speaker 1: 46:05

David Beckmeyer, my guest on the show, and be sure you visit his website. It's outrageoverloadnet. What will we learn by listening to your podcast? What will we find by visiting your website? What can we do there?

Speaker 2: 46:24

I'm sorry you were breaking up just a little bit on my end. Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 46:28

Your podcast and your website, outrageoverlovenet. What will we learn by listening to your podcast and what will we find by visiting your website?

Speaker 2: 46:40

Yeah, well, my promise is maybe a little big. One of the guests that I had on, peter Coleman, works in the space and said we're just out here trying to prevent civil war. But my promise is listen to my show 30, 40 minutes every couple of weeks. You'll be less stressed out. It'll change your life.

Speaker 1: 47:05

Excellent David Beckmeyer, host of Outrage Overload podcast, and outrageoverloadnet is the website. Thank you very much. This has been great, very enlightening. Thank you so much, Ryan. Thank you so folks, be sure you take a listen to his podcast. I think that's so important.

Speaker 1: 47:25

Now we're in a different time and some of us who remember the days before the Internet and then after the Internet and what it's become now, sure, we've said at times wouldn't that be great if we could have something in our pocket and just know the answers to every question in the world immediately. Well, we're there now. At that same time we said you know, wouldn't it be terrible if the government can track our every move? Well, they can. Now we don't really mind.

Speaker 1: 47:55

We need to sometimes focus on our opinions. Maybe they need to be changed with the times, with our background, with what we suspect. We're getting new information all the time and we have to be discerning. We have to take a look at the information that we get and decide how that works for us. So take a listen to David's podcast and come back to listen to discerningtheunknowncom is the website. And once again, like I always say at the end of every show, men should not wear flip-flops. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it by golly. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm Ryan Peterson and we'll talk next time.