Them Vs. Us

My uncle told me a joke recently. In short, the joke involved a man who was allowed to choose whether he wanted to go "upstairs" or "downstairs" after he passed away. The man was given the chance to try a day upstairs and a day downstairs. When he went downstairs, everyone was smiling and dancing. The food was really good and everyone looked so content. Next, the man went upstairs and found things to be relatively boring in comparison to what he had seen before. So, he chose to spend his eternal life downstairs. When he got there this time, it resembled what he thought it would have before his sample visit--hell. He went to the devil and said "What is this?" This devil said, "Well, that whole nice day was just a way to hook you in. Now that you're here, you'll see things are different." In political terms, that nice day was a campaign promise that was not followed through with. The man was obviously fooled by the visual propaganda he saw and did not follow through to get the facts.

Environmental Propaganda

Chapter Nine in Toxic Sludge deals with the idea of “going green.” One section of the chapter that really surprised me was the “good cop/bad cop” part. It is really hard to believe that, given all we know today about climate change, there are still anti-environmentalists out there who believe “that ecological crises don’t exist, that corporations are really protecting and improving the natural environment, and that environmental activists…are ‘eco-terrorists’…and the latest incarnation of the communist menace” (126). I really wonder how these people are convinced that our environment is not in dire need of help. So called “environmental PR” is propaganda that is put out there to then try and persuade the general public that environmental problems do not exist. However, with the tactics we learned in unSpun, we can hopefully see through this propaganda and search for the facts on our own.

Staying unSpun

After reading unSpun, I am more aware than ever of just how deceptive advertisements truly are. Although it seems many people are conscious of this factor, it is still incredibly difficult to “stay unSpun.” After all, we are only human—we still fall prey to the messages that sound so good on the surface level. In the conclusion of unSpun, we are taken through one final propaganda case study. At this point in the text, however, it just seemed like more of the same ideas the writers had already presented. Still, I found the case study interesting. Nowadays, people look for easy and quick ways to lose weight, so when the Hoodia diet first became known, people were rushing to try it. This is just a perfect example, however, of how people are so quick to try things that sound good without actually reading the facts. In this case, that could have been bad news considering very little was actually known about the Hoodia that was being sold. This proves that many people were looking for a quick fix; thus, even when their health was concerned, they didn’t check up on the facts. Overall, unSpun definitely taught me how to be more assertive when it comes to the media. I now look at advertisements more skeptically because I know just how misleading surface messages can truly be.

In addition, there is one portion of Toxic Sludge that I would like to discuss—the “NIMBY” or “Not In My Back Yard” movements. These movements start from the bottom, or grassroots, level. They are formed mostly of average people fighting for a cause they believe in deeply. About ten years ago, there was a “NIMBY” movement organized in my area. At the local mall, contractors wanted to build a 24 theatre AMC movie complex. At the time, such a big complex was unheard of. People in my township, especially those who live right by the mall, had a lot to say about this. Many people were against the idea because they thought it would bring extra traffic and more crime to the area. Despite their efforts, however, the complex was built and is still booming. Sometimes, all the PR done by these “NIMBY” movements is just not enough to defeat the big corporations.

How to Be Sure

The subtitle for chapter eight in UnSpun is “How to Be Sure.” Well, how can we really be sure that our facts are actually facts? After all, we are misled so often and pulled in so many different directions that it is hard to know what is real and what is illusion. We fall so easily for the traps that propagandists and advertisers so often set for us.

I like that this chapter gives us ways we can try to avoid this deception. It is one of the few chapters in the book that tells us what to do and not just what to avoid. Rule #4, Check Primary Sources, was one that really caught my attention. I feel that people just believe the first stories they hear because they do not feel like digging deeper for real information. We are all guilty of doing this. Even newspaper headlines can sometimes be deceiving because they often include words which have been taken out of context. However, chapter four says we should read newspaper articles thinking, “Does this story really back up the headline?” If we read the article in depth and search for details, we can tell whether or not the headline is appropriate.

Real Evidence

Perhaps, some people are born skeptics—they possess an innate ability to see right through anything and everyone. Others, however, might be more inclined to look for the goodness or truth in people, products, and evidence. It is not until many people have been jaded by a certain idea that they then become cynical. For example, when I was a little girl, I always wanted to try the products on the “As Seen on TV” infomercials. One day, I saw an infomercial for the “Hairagami”—a product that would let you fold your hair, so to speak. I remember thinking that I could use the hairagami to make really cool ponytails and buns for my hair. My mom, already having been jaded by these infomercials, told me the products usually didn’t work the way they did on television. But, being the strong-willed child I was, I bugged and bugged for a hairagami. When my mom finally caved and ordered it, I was really disappointed that the product didn’t work as well as expected. It was really hard to fold the hairagami so that it fit right with my hair. Needless to say, there began my skepticism of TV infomercials. As a consumer, I didn’t research the product deep enough to find out its many flaws.

Chapter six in unSpun does a good job of addressing this need for finding the hard evidence before making any rash decisions. We need to look for real truths—the ones behind the propaganda. For example, it would be important to examine any medicine, like Cold-Eeze, before taking it in order to see if it’s as good as its label says. Unfortunately, in our society, it is probably not as good as the label makes it out to be. Similarly, we need to watch out for the appeals to authority in advertising. For example, as the text points out, Martin Sheen’s TV portrayal of a president shouldn’t be enough for us to trust his political judgments (125). A while back, I read an interview with Grey’s Anatomy actor Patrick Dempsey (Derek Shepherd aka McDreamy). Dempsey said that he had once been on a plane where another passenger became very ill. To his surprise everyone looked at him like he should help the sick passenger. Of course when people become panicked they often get desperate, but just because someone plays a doctor on TV does not mean he or she is competent in the field of medicine. We just need to dig deep and get past the fallacies.

Get the Facts

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the old adage "haste makes waste." This saying is one of the essential messages in chapter five of unSpun. Specifically, it relates to the story of Daniel Bullock. Bullock was a reputable doctor in California until he was part of a tax evasion scam. Evidently, Bullock thought he could legally avoid paying his taxes. In reality, he was just dealing with a smooth-talking scammer who told Bullock what he wanted to hear. What the good doctor neglected to do, however, was research the facts. I find it hard to believe that such an educated man would believe such a crazy trick. I guess money matters make people do things they wouldn’t normally do. It just goes to show that propaganda and fraud are always around us—from television ads to deceptive money saving “tips.”

I like that the title of the chapter is “Facts Can Save Your Life.” It really emphasizes that people need to dig deep for the truths out there. After all, as this chapter suggests, once we get past the lies, we can see what is really happening politically, medically, and socially in our world. Still, people construct their own truths and hear what they want to hear. The only way we will be able to hear everything is if we take down our blinders. I agree with the authors of unSpun in that being open to getting the facts right “can save your money, your health, even your freedom” (84).

Spin, Spin, Spin

Every election season, I get really fed up with all the political ads on tv and radio. These ads are so misinterpreted by the public because we don’t know who to believe. After all, there are always three sides to every story: Candidate A’s side, Candidate B’s side, and then the truth. I wish people could see through the false or exaggerated advertisements and through all the bias that exists in the media. Still, people are going to believe what they are conditioned to believe—and it is really difficult to teach an old dog new tricks (or change his/her political views in this case).

At least chapter four in unSpun does a good job of showing us why we are so easily influenced by the media: we are wired to be that way! I had no idea that brain scans could show evidence of people's political bias after they are shown ads. I liked that this chapter showed the ways people get "trapped" or spun one way or the other. I especially find the "I know I'm Right" trap pertinent to elections. It definitely seems like the more people are wrong, they actually think they are right. Don't you hate it when you talk to someone, and you know they are completely wrong and can prove it, yet they insist that they are right? It almost seems that the less people are informed about an election issue, the more they attempt to take a side and stand by it in order to appear educated.