Why Aren't Just the Facts Enough?

I came across this on the January 30th 2011 CBS Sunday morning, and was utterly intrigued by the premise. I think understanding the amygdala and hippocampus as complimentary parts of the limbic system offer a lot of insight into our current events, especially politics. The notion of a belief 'hardening' goes a long way towards explaining the birthers, tenthers, truthers, illegal union actions, and of course the voter conspiracy fraud believers too.

Facts do not dissuade them, their beliefs are hardened beyond the reach of fact or reason or presentation of any objective evidence.


This would seem to go a long way towards explaining why Fox News or any other Rupert Murdoch media outlet has even one consumer.  Because, consistently they are not about 'selling' the facts; they are about selling what Stephen Colbert is all about - not the truth, but truthiness, about the apocryphal narrative which is not true or factual, but which they believe should be true, making it believable for that audience.

Like this segment of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart where various Fox News talking-heads deny the blatantly clear evidence that they have used, over-used, and outright abused references to Nazis and their political opposition, not to mention all the other clips in Stewart's brilliant, factual, and funny calling to account of Faux News and the other Rupert Murdoch propaganda flunkies:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
24-Hour Nazi Party People
www.thedailyshow.com
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I'm going to try to explore the research behind the 'The Fast Draw' segment to see if it helps make our modern political exchanges, and the attendant propaganda, any more comprehensible. In the meantime, no one does it better than Stewart and his staff in appealing to the emotions and the intellect at the same time, in defense of facts.

A special thank you to mikeb for his help in ironing out a problem I was having getting videos to work in the blogging software. Thanks Mike!