Jer979's Blog: Seeing only what you want to see...

Monday, October 13, 2008

Seeing only what you want to see...

My friend, Debbie Weil, put out a tweet regarding the an Op-ed in the NY Times.

Notwithstanding the fact that she read all of the comments (an amazing accomplishment), my impression (and I haven't asked her about this), is that her interpretation is that this proves there is mass dissatisfaction with GOP.

Seth Godin offers up the idea that, as consumers, we look for stories that resonate with our worldview. We tell these stories to ourselves so we feel justified in our outlook.

We all do this, so this isn't a personal thing vis a vis Debbie, it's just that her tweet made me realize it.

Her worldview is that America would be better off with Obama. As a result, she looks for 'stories' that reinforce her worldview.

Seeing 743 comments on an Op-Ed in the NY Times that support her worldview only serves to reinforce it.

Which is what we all want, right?

None of us want to think we're wrong all of the time.

However, it could be that a few of her underlying assumptions are incorrect and she is ignoring them because it doesn't support her 'worldview.'

For example, she may be assuming that the NY Times reader base is actually a representative cross-sampling of America.

Once upon a time, this may have been true.

Instead, the NY Times just may be a liberal "echo chamber" where conservatives don't even bother to go anymore. It's not a place for debate. It's a rally.

If that's the case, then it's really not that surprising that everyone is anti-GOP, is it?

I just finished reading an excellent book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, which talks about the epochal changes that arise from the social tools available via the Internet.

He pointed to the Howard Dean 2004 campaign as an example of where people misinterpreted an event.

In 2004, Dean followers organized "meet-ups" early on during his campaign. The number of 'meet-ups' was quite high. This led the "mainstream" press to interpret the event as a huge groundswell of support for Dean.

Image via WikipediaImage via Wikipedia

Shirky, the author of Here Comes Everybody: , argued that what in fact was happening was that the social tools of the Internet (i.e. Meetup.com) just made it easier and cheaper for the natural supporters to find each other.

So, the number of events didn't actually reflect the number of supporters, it reflected the technological shift that occurred to make it easier for the really small base to find each other...that's what we all missed.

Now, I'm not saying that Debbie is wrong. She may be right, but she may also be misinterpreting the data based on

her worldview (though we're all susceptible to this)

technology (where it's easier -and feels better-to just pile on saying 'me too' than to argue the counter-point where you will only get shouted down by the crowd)

Of course, my 'worldview' is that people look for stories that support their worldview (and thus aren't objective), so perhaps I'm just telling myself a story of my own ;-)