Fake news, moral relativity, false people

I decided this past week to cancel my digital subscription to a major US newspaper. It doesn’t matter which newspaper for the sake of this post. I cancelled it because I disagreed with their editorial decision on a particular issue. It bothered me that the newspaper caved to public pressure on that issue. And their expectations were that their readers should understand that, but my opinion is that the editorial page should be able to present multiple sides of any issue. However, in 2020 that doesn’t seem to be possible. You have to take one or the other side whether you want to or not or are ready to do so or not. I can’t do it just because someone tells me I have to. I was raised bipartisan and will remain bipartisan. I need to be able to look at all sides of an issue. And frankly, there are often multiple sides to an issue. So being multi-partisan might be the way to go. This doesn’t mean that I don’t take a stand; often I do, but only after reflection and self-questioning (what do I believe or feel or think about this or that issue). I don’t want to be ‘told’ what stand to take, I want to figure things out for myself. That is the result of my parents and my Catholic upbringing. Unfortunately, the current president has done nothing to encourage reflection and bipartisanship.

My point is that it was nearly impossible to cancel my subscription. I got an email from customer service asking me to reconsider, and telling me that they would reduce my subscription cost by 75%. It’s interesting by itself that they automatically assumed that I cancelled because the subscription was too expensive. They also thanked me for being a subscriber and stated that it was due to the support of subscribers like me that allowed them to continue to pursue the truth. They added that the truth was more important now than ever. I agree with the last sentence, and hope that the newspaper really is interested in pursuing the truth. We’re constantly being told that there is a lot of fake news out there. I’m sure that’s the case. None of the media (newspapers, television, or social media) can claim to be the only ones who pursue or know the truth. None of them can claim to ‘own’ the truth. Those who say things like that are those I write off immediately—I’m simply not interested. Up to this point, I thought certain newspapers stood head and shoulders above the rest. Now, I’m not so sure.

The older I get, the more sensitive my bullshit detector gets. My advice to most people—don’t try to put one over on me, pull the wool over my eyes, or coax me over to your side (which is of course ‘the right side’). You’ll regret it. I’ll write you off faster than you can say ‘morally relative’. I have zero patience left for partisan political agendas, fifteen-minute-of-fame agendas, or people who want me to support agendas I don’t believe in—the list is long. I’m not hopping on your bandwagon to promote the newest management philosophy in the workplace, I’m not interested in listening to the same psychobabble week after week, month after month, about this new vision or that new innovation. I don’t care. The old expression ‘put your money where your mouth is’, is the only thing I’m interested in. When management has been told time and again that more employees are needed to solve a particular problem, and management continues to push the ‘relevant’ flavour of the month management philosophy (New Public Management, LEAN, etc.) that we all need to work more effectively with less resources and less people, then management has a big problem. Most of these philosophies are ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ (the emperor is naked, but we’re told to praise his clothes) philosophies. I won’t cede to them. I won’t think positive when the situation in front of me is clearly negative and needs to be acknowledged as such in order for it to be solved. I won’t pretend everything is ok when it’s not. But we’re asked to pretend every day, and it makes me weary. Most of it is fake, and most of it is pure bullshit. But we’re told that it’s not and we’re told to believe that it’s not. We’re told that it’s ok to be direct and honest in the workplace; but it’s not. We’re told to think big and to be innovative; but when we do that, it’s wrong. We’re told to communicate effectively, but when we try to, we find that we cannot write the whole truth; it takes hours to formulate a politically-correct email that won’t offend anyone or step on anyone’s toes (status, position, or territory). My God, it’s boring. Effective communication? No.

This is not life the way I want to live it. I want to live honestly and to not pretend. I want to live according to my ethical and moral principles, not according to someone else’s political agenda at work or in society at large. I don’t want to give up my principles in order to align myself with someone else’s ‘side’. I don’t want to be loyal to people who I know are false. There are many false people who want to drag you into their sphere, those who tempt you with status, money, power, or prestige. Those people who shift their beliefs and thoughts according to the popular flavour of the month philosophy (moral relativity). Those people who lie to your face. Those people whose sole interests in life are fame and fortune, whose greed dominates (and dooms) most relationships.

Perhaps the corona virus pandemic has given me the time to see how society and the workplace really are. I’ve had a chance to do a reality check. What I know is that society needs a re-haul, bigtime. Press the restart button. I’m not sure what we should move toward, but perhaps moving away from fame and fortune, from greed, and more toward a spiritually-oriented life, would be a start and a welcome change.  

Civility and respect for others

I cancelled yet another newspaper subscription this morning. My husband and I have discussed cancelling our different newspaper subscriptions for the past two years, mostly because we find that they have gone from being newspapers that used to try to present the news in a neutral fashion, to being purveyors of whatever agenda they wish to push at present. To some of you, this might seem rather short-sighted; after all, you can argue that we need to get our news from someplace. We need to follow what is happening in the world. And to a certain extent, you're right. But also wrong. Because what I didn't see happening was this--we're happier without them. We no longer start the day with misery; we no longer have to discuss all that's wrong with the world at the breakfast table. I no longer ruin the start of my day by letting all the world's ills overwhelm me the minute I get up. They seep in anyway during the day, and if we watch the tv news as we do sporadically, we certainly get our dose of misery. So we don't escape it, we just control how it happens and how much we let in.

Newspapers in all countries need to be careful about over-pushing their agendas, be they conservative or liberal. Most of us grew up in a bipartisan atmosphere (at least the families I grew up with in our neck of the woods), able to see both sides, even if we leaned toward one or the other a bit more. I know there was political unrest, hatred, bitterness and spite back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s when we were growing up; you just need to google Vietnam, racial unrest, Watergate and Nixon. But it is so totally extreme and out of control now. Nowadays, judging by what I see happening in the USA, we are so bitterly divided, with the gap widening a bit more each day, such that I fear for the future of our country. We are still a young country compared to most European countries that have centuries of wars and unrest behind them. It feels like a civil war is already taking place in America, fought in the media trenches and in social media and online generally. If you have the 'wrong' opinion and express it, you can expect to be hung out, brutally criticized, suppressed, fired from your job, or other such outcomes depending on the audience that gets a hold of what you said. You will get your fifteen minutes of fame and then some, but not in the manner you would have chosen for yourself. Good people who might want to say something become afraid to do so, whereas the people who don't care at all what other people think of them, have free reign.

I don't want a civil war, nor do I want a world where we are not able to express our opinions. But there is a way of expressing opinions that needs to change. We need to relearn civility. Civility is defined as 'formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech'. We need to relearn how to respect others. It is possible to have a different opinion from others without expressing hatred for those who do not share your views. It is possible to discuss both sides of a situation without being labelled a pariah for doing so. Isn't this approach what judges and lawyers engage in everyday? They work on court cases that need examination of both sides of the issue. Imagine a world where judges ruled a person guilty before the trial. That would not be a democracy, and would not be a country I'd want to live in. And yet, we are behaving in this way on social media and in the media generally, judging and sentencing people before they and we have had a chance to discuss the issues.

Some younger people I know have now limited or cancelled their social media accounts because of the hatred they see online. It's tempting to follow them. I haven't up to now because social media remains an important connection to my family and friends in the USA. But I have reduced my interaction with social media in order to stay peaceful. You might ask why peace is so important to me; after all, the world has many problems that need to be tackled. That's true. But I know from experience that anger and volatility don't solve problems. They fuel the fire of hatred and revenge. Assertiveness, peaceful protests, standing up for yourself, being able to reach out to the other side in order to discuss the issues--these are what solve problems. Diplomacy, compromise, an empathetic approach--these solve problems. Anger gets spent, and after it burns out, the real work begins. The question at present is who will be willing to work for real change in politics at home and globally. The type of change needed must be fronted by civil and respectful leaders.

Celebrating a network of women

There is a lot of emphasis at present placed on the importance of building networks in the work world, and how employees won’t get very far professionally without them. Women especially are admonished for not working harder to build and maintain their professional networks. You never know when you may need them, and you never know when your network may need you. I’ve reflected upon how this relates to my own life. Most of my professional network contacts are women. Many of my contacts/friends entered my life via my different jobs, others through schools and universities, still others from the neighborhood I grew up in. Those I’ve met via my different jobs have become my friends, and we’ve stayed friends even after we’ve left the jobs where we met.

My professional and personal networks overlap to a large degree; I consider my professional contacts to be my friends. And my friends from outside of work, from my childhood neighborhood and schools, are a support network for me in all ways, sometimes even professionally. One of my friends and I collaborated on a consulting web project together a few years ago, at her initiative. I wrote a report for another friend who was thinking about investing in the building of a private lab for the production of a malaria drug, also her initiative. Another friend--a research scientist—asked for my help in publishing two articles on which we’d collaborated during the past few years, and another friend asked me to provide photos for a scientific writing project she was working on. I have helped a teacher friend who had her grammar school class write letters to me to ask about what’s involved in becoming a scientist. I organized a tour of my hospital laboratory for the high school class of another teacher friend, so that the students could get an idea of what it’s like to work in a lab on a daily basis, and to see the techniques and instrumentation we use in our research. A photographer friend asked me to model for her a couple of times, and has taken some nice portrait photos of me that I have used professionally. Another photographer friend designs and formats the text and covers of my published books.When I think back over the years, we have helped each other in different ways. We’ve stepped up to the plate for each other and gotten involved in interesting projects as a result, all of which have enriched our lives, personally and professionally.

I want to acknowledge these women (of all ages) who are a part of my life and who have enriched it beyond measure. I consider each of them friends, including those who are family. They come from all walks of life, and all of them are wonderfully different and talented women. Many of them have combined work and family life with all of the attendant difficulties and joys. Without naming them personally, I can list their various lines of work here:

1. at least ten scientific researchers, one of whom is an author and consultant , another who is an author and owner of a scientific publishing company
2. two photographers and small business owners
3. two social workers, one who heads a non-profit educational organization
4. two teachers (one retired)
5. supermarket head cashier
6. president of a city university
7. global marketing manager for a scientific company
8. fundraising director
9. a minister
10. conflict resolution counselor, author and coach
11. part-time educational and programming consultant
12. university administrator
13. owner of a scientific consulting company
14. three doctors
15. hospital and health professional
16. soil conservationist
17. paralegal
18. computer services manager
19. writer and editor
20. national scientific liaison manager
21. three librarians
22. obstetrics nurse
23. horseback riding instructor
24. three senior research technicians (now retired; all women in their 70s, one of whom works as a consultant)
25. nurse (retired)
26. apartment superintendant (now retired; a family friend who is in her early 80s)
27. tour guide (now retired, 85 years old)
28. secretary (was my oldest friend from my first job, who passed away last year at the age of 86)

Society should be celebrating the lives of real women in all of the different media formats, instead of focusing ad nausea on worn-out celebrities and celebrity wannabes. There are, dare I say it, things to write about other than the size of this or that celebrity’s engagement ring or who had a wardrobe malfunction. Who cares? Is this what makes women interesting? The answer is no. That’s my take on it, and that’s my challenge to society at large. Celebrate the interesting women--the women on my list. They are the women who are advancing the world, one small step at a time, and they’re doing it without a lot of fanfare.