Moving Bias War to Academia -- Buddhist Perspective

I am trying to take an integrative, systems approach to this documentary. It’s hard to pin the blame of any alleged failings of the mainstream media squarely on the media.

This is because there is a complex feedback loop relationship between the government, the media, and the society. Just critiquing the supply (media) without analyzing the demand (popular culture) is a simplistic and reductionistic approach to the issue.

One implication of this is that our public education system and college educational paradigms have a major impact on our culture, which then influences the demand for the programming that commercial broadcasters provide.

A dilemma with these types of issues is that medium of film is better suited for black and white issues rather than complexity and nuance. This tendency is what drives the mainstream major media to only frame issues from the perspective of Republican and Democratic Leadership in the Executive Branch and Congress. When Democrats and Republicans agree, then there is no debate.

Conservatives seem to be moving their bias culture war from the media to academia as evidenced by the reaction to last Thurday’s New York Times article, "Republicans Outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find."

I actually tend to agree with conservatives in that intellectual diversity would encourage more critical thinking in our colleges. The more critical thinking there is, the better.

There is an intellectual laziness and stagnation in our culture, and it would be a good thing if people realized that a lot of learning can come from resolving cognitive dissonance through the process of debating people with different perspectives.

When the facts don't support your attitudes and beliefs, then it is time to change your beliefs instead of trying to discredit the source of the facts. That's why it was hard for me to merely dismiss the implications of what it means for Liberals to outnumber Conservatives on the college campuses.

I thought about how and if I could include this in the film and found this excerpt from an interview that we conducted with a Buddhist scholar from Harvard named Christopher Queen. Queen had some interesting insights into the public education system for our culture:

"As far as delusion goes, all people are deluded in one way or another. Americans talk a great deal about education and the importance of childhood and college education. But, you know, what is the quality of the material we are getting in the classroom or in the textbook? Who are the educators? And to what extent do communities participate in shaping the education that they need for healthy community? To what extent is education top-down and not bottom-up? And how are people defining the kinds of things that they need to learn or the skills that they need to acquire? So education is a huge battleground in our society. And the extent to which the globe -- or the planet -- is part of our education."

I'm not sure how this will tie into the final film -- I can just see conservatives crying that I'm biased if I don't somehow incorporate it.

But I just though how weird is was to see how similar this Buddhist perspective is to the Libertarian perspective that we heard from Karen Kwiatkowski. when we disscused Libertarianism for over two hours after our interview with her.

It just goes to show you that there can be more common ground between differing perspectives than you would originally expect...

Just thought I’d share this insight as I’m writing up a business plan...