The Hegelian Dialectic in the Media

Under the Hegelian Dialectic, there is ...

thesis: an idea, opinion, position;

antithesis: the opposite idea, opinion or position;

and

synthesis: the bringing together of thesis and antithesis to bring about the wanted change.

This is a process that is nefarious in that the outcome of the process is already decided. While touted as a decision making process, the purpose of the process is really to ...

1. facilitate people into believing the outcome is theirs such that people will climb on board, support and defend the predetermined outcome; and
2. remove accountability for the predetermined outcome from the agency responsible and place it on a group of non-elected individuals who really had nothing to do with the making of the decision (predetermined outcome) and cannot be held responsible by the people ...

i. it isn't our fault, this represents what the people want, ie, the people made this decision; or

ii. this is supported by the community, ie, this non-elected group of people (representing the community) is responsible, not us.

This process is often used by groups to foment change. Case in point: The DC Sniper case. The local media in Washington State, as soon as it became apparent that authorities were looking at the area around Ft Lewis, Washington on the west side for evidence, began minute by minute, blow by blow, coverage. When Muhammed and Malvo were arrested, the race was on to see who could report the most minutia the fastest ...

¨ Malvo and his mother had been detained at the Blaine crossing on the border between the U.S. and Canada;

¨ Malvo had gone to school in Bellingham;

¨ Malvo had been incarcerated at Martin Hall in Medical Lake, west of Spokane, for a period of time;

¨ Malvo had been under investigation by authorities before he dropped out of school in Bellingham ...

¨ Malvo wasn't a U.S. citizen ...

And so it went, on and on and on. One got the decided impression, from the news coverage, that Malvo and Muhammed were celebrities, doers of good deeds, heroes.

And therein lies the subtle but real message of the news media. While the media is quick to say crimes such as this are horrendous, the media, at the same time, is encouraging this behavior by giving these criminals the spotlight, thereby notoriety and fame.

How much did that have to do with the 18-year-old going on the shooting spree in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, this past weekend? What better way for him to get his 15 minutes of fame, his name and face in the news, than to engage in random public shootings like Muhammed and Malvo did?

In encouraging this behavior, the media is subtly fomenting the chaos necessary to make people willing to give up their rights for security. In the words of Saul Alinsky, self-avowed Marxist, proponent of the Hegelian Dialectic, published in Rules for Radicals:

Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.

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