BUMPER STICKER "TRUTHS"

Watching MSNBC, the loudest liberal voice on TV, I was pleased to hear some good old-fashioned smarts. It was about how the Republicans always find the high ground when it comes to sound bytes and slogans, while the Democrats problem is that they are too “nuanced.”

Translated, it means that if you take a simplistic view of reality it is easy to make sense with something that fits on a bumper sticker. It needs no thinking. On the other hand, “nuanced” means than the problems and their solutions are far too complex to be reduced to a simple sound byte. The evidence presented was that when it comes to Health Care the Republicans sing a song of disaster and put it in really idiotically simple terms like “Death Panels.” The rise of the Tea Party movement is nothing but a pot shot at sanity using empty sloganeering and talking points like less government and down with Socialism. Easy. Quick. Persuasive. Most of all, the person they reach does not have to exert himself intellectually.

What the speaker on MSNBC said was that the Democrats should be selling health care with scare tactics. I thought of one that would work: “Will you be the next to lose it?” Capitalizing on the fact that tens of thousands of ordinary Americans are dropped from the rolls of health insurers every week, the slogan says “You could be next.” It might shake the frightened people who don’t want change because they are already protected.

Now I read that a certain group (not all thank you) of Evangelicals in America is uniting in a more nuanced campaign to put Evolution back on the front page in education. They have been been demanding critical discussion in schools about Evolution versus “Intelligent Design.” Now they have found another one: global warming. The same people who want to promote Intelligent Design over Evolution now want to promote “both sides” of the climate change issue, giving legitimacy to the global warming deniers. In so doing, they will broaden their platform from legitimizing Biblical "truth” to the larger issue of freedom of speech.

Here’s where the difference between “nuance” (read that informed and questioning) and “knee jerk” (read that “I don’t know nothing” about science but I know what I believe.”)

I have just finished reading the most powerful book I have ever read on climate change: “Under A Green Sky.” The sky being the tropical sky of the Eocene period when there were no ice caps and palm trees grew above what is now the Arctic Circle.

The author Peter D. Ward is a paleontologist. He examines the history of the world through fossils and minute examination of strata laid down millions, even billions of years ago.

“impact” theory – i.e. a huge meteor hitting Earth and causing an endless winter. I won’t try to go into it (and this is exactly where the bumper sticker mentality wins out, because “going into it” requires a lot of patience and a little scholarship) but they have demonstrated that extinctions were far more gradual (in geological terms – millions of years) and were as a result of rising and toxic levels of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Now perhaps you see what I mean. This is only a shadow of the scientific explanation and I can see the simpletons going glassy-eyed.

I am not sure if this attitude reflects a “dumbing down” of the general public, or simply an unwillingness to set aside cherished, however wrong, notions.

“Under A Green Sky” nails it, but not for the chronically and willingly uninformed. Heaven help democracy!