Aloha Colleagues and Friends:

One of the major challenges we face in dealing with the next four years of the Bush administration is to reassess our role in the academy and as mental health professionals and educators. I have been distressed over the number of people who have said things like, "Michael, the vast majority of people in the US are not complex thinkers we have to simply things for them and use good sound bytes." "Michael Moore's movie was just too fast paced with too much information jumping out at the audience to be effective. The people in this country can't handle that amount of information all at once and analyze it critically." "Michael, your e-mails are too long. Can you say what you have to say in less words?"

Marshall McCluenn said several decades ago the the "media is the medium and the massage." I believe what he meant by this is that the media in this country shapes and distorts the consciouusness of the masses of people in ways that lead to greater levels of conformity and reduced critical thinkikng abilities. To answer persons who have asked me the last question listed above.. I probably could use less words... and yes, brevity has its place in any discourse, but in doing so it may lose some of the meaning of the issues I am trying to make in fostering cricial discourse of complex issues within the academy in general and among this group in particular.

The best of the academy, from my perspective, is taking time to research and read extensively about the pressing moral-social- psychological-spiritual-cultural issues of our day in order that we can collectively plan for a multifaceted approach to successfully promoting transformational-revolutionary changes that are based on intentional and comprehensive actions as mental health professionals as we strive to consciously combat oppression in all its forms as we move towards promoting mental liberation and psychological well- being. I think it is difficult to sound byte that perspective.

I am concerned that some persons and recognized leaders in the multicultural-feminsit-social justice movement are falling prey to the media's massage of brevity and reduced complex political-social analysis. What we need, again from my perspective, is more complex analysis, more time for open and affirmative/challenging discourse via e-mails, other forms of technological interactions, and face-to-face encounters and meetings at our summits and other conferences... not less...

With this in mind I am attaching two editorials taking from today's NY Times that are relevant to these points. The first discusses the "The values myth and the need for more complex analysis of the recent presidential election." I agree with the author that Bush's victory is more complex that pointing to the homophobic perspectives of people in this country or to the rise of evangelicalism". The second article emphasizes the need to go beyond simple marketing of T-shirts with short progressive slogans to entice young people to vote a certain way and to formulate a long-term psychological-education intervention that re-shapes the cognitive development and moral consciousness of the next generation of citizens in this country.

As mental health professionals and members of the academy, it is important to embrace our role as human development specialists, make a commitment to implement actions strategies that are intentionally designed to advance the intellectual capacities of the masses of people in our community in ways that lead to Freierian notions of psychological liberation, and not encourage other complex thinkers to dumb down their message by transmitting over simplified brief sound bytes so the reader/audience can move to other tasks in their lives.

Our challenge is complex, beautiful and wondrous....I am convinced that working together we can relive the full beauty and wonder of our challenge at this time in the history of the world.

Peace my friends and colleagues... and onward to justice....

Michael D'Andrea

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November 6, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Values-Vote Myth

By DAVID BROOKS

 

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.

Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not.

The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal. I've spent the past four years traveling to 36 states and writing millions of words trying to understand this values divide, and I can tell you there is no one explanation. It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.

In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.

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November 6, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

They're Not Buying It

By ALISSA QUART

 

The youth of America did not suffer from a lack of attention in this campaign. T-shirts and posters for Sean Combs's "Vote or Die!" campaign were seemingly everywhere, and Mr. Combs said its mission was to make voting "hot" and "sexy." MTV's "20 Million Loud" voter registration campaign, complete with concerts and videos, was also ubiquitous. There was even a presidential Barbie, who according to a Mattel marketer was an ideal candidate because she had served in the military.

But when the time came to go to the polls this week, America's 18- to 29-year-olds didn't turn out to be as decisive as predicted. While they did turn out in record numbers, so did everyone else - so that America's youngest voters made up about the same percentage of the overall vote this year as in 2000.

What happened to the youth vote - and why did the media onslaught of Mr. Combs and others fail to deliver it? Was it simply the fickleness of a group famous for its capricious tastes? After all, marketers for products far more "sexy" than democracy are reduced to chasing America's youth around malls, trying to annotate their infinitesimal shifts in desire. Or does the fault lie with the practice of marketing voting as if it was a trendy T-shirt - with real trendy T-shirt included?

Probably the latter. Take Mr. Combs's Citizen Change, whose two main "talents" - the attention-crazed heiress Paris Hilton and the gifted but derivative rapper 50 Cent - are not even registered to vote. Almost certainly, that wasn't a surprise to marketing-savvy teenagers who knew these stars wouldn't interrupt their Mediterranean vacations or their Hummer shopping to show up at the polls.

That's insincere marketing. It might sell T-shirts, but it doesn't sell democracy. Marketing is geared toward instant self-betterment, not long-term social betterment, which always contains elements of both sacrifice and boredom.

Besides, voting comes from a deeper place than what's cool. Studies show that young people tend to vote not out of a "hot" or "sexy" feeling - or even a pseudo-hot or sexy feeling. Their voting patterns are heavily influenced by the relationship to voting that was forged in their childhoods.

A young adult's memories of her parents voting, of them talking about elections or taking her to the polls with them, turn out to be among the biggest predictors of whether she herself will vote. Additionally, according to a study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, easier voting methods would be the single biggest aid to getting a higher youth turnout, especially if young people could register to vote on Election Day.

There are other ways for campaign literature to be effective - ways that don't depend on abuse of capital letters (MTV's PRElection) or a bunch of second-rate rappers. One flier produced by America Coming Together simply bore the face of a young African-American man in fatigues and read: "They want us to fight their war in Iraq. But they don't want us to vote." But such direct, emotional pleas to young voters - an angrier and more grounded version of the market-tested "Vote or Die!" campaign - were not widely in evidence this election.

A few organizations have been trying to introduce voting not only to eligible young voters but also to children, in the hopes of making for nonvoting parents. Girls Incorporated holds mock elections, including faux polling places, for its members, who range in age from 6 to 18. Similarly, the organization Kids Voting USA runs mock elections for its young members to familiarize them with the electoral process.

These groups don't try to be cool. One local Kids Voting group even has a dweeby slogan: "A great civic generation can't develop overnight!" But the uncool slogans, as is usually the case, are often the truest ones. It is a quality that marketing shares with politics.

Alissa Quart is author of "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers."