| Obersalzberg- Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun with dogs (German_Shepherd_Dog "Blondi"?) at the Berghof (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
There seems to be this issue that crops up from time to time in social media. The issue of "balance" or "fairness" in terms of what an individual person posts to his or her blog, feed, etc. For me, it took the form of someone who I barely knew in HS, who had added me on Facebook six or months prior suddenly posting their first comment to one of my posts and she basically said "you never post anything nice about Christians! You're not fair or balanced!". First of all, that was factually inaccurate, I've posted plenty of nice things that pro-gay Christians have said or done. Secondly, "so what?".
Fairness, balance, accuracy, telling the whole story, that's something you would expect from a news organization. Especially one that has made the claim they are "fair and balanced". But individuals? Private Citizens? People are biased. Individual people are not neutral, nor should anyone expect otherwise. If someone posts about how Hitler was responsible for the holocaust, but never posts about all the nice paintings Hitler did ---so what? Is that even relevant to the atrocities this man is responsible for? Does it negate what he did to the Jewish people and gay people? Does it make the horrible things he did any less horrible or any less factual? No. Then it's not relevant, is it?
NOW, it's one thing to point out that an article someone has posted doesn't tell the whole story, or was later shown to be missing some key details, or that it's an opinion piece that doesn't back up it's arguments with facts or cite sources. But if an individual posts a link to an article that is factual, accurate, and negative, then complaining that they don't also post an equally positive article about the same subject, group, person, etc is, quite frankly, bullsh*t.
People who post "you never say anything nice about _____." have no legit arguments, so they've resorted to attacking your character. Notice that this doesn't deal with the facts of of article a person has posted. It doesn't deal with the substance of the issues, in fact it AVOIDS the issue altogether. It's one thing to spread lies or misinformation. It's quite another to spread factual yet unpleasant information without ever posting anything "nice". It is, quite frankly, a distraction.
If someone murders tons of people, does it matter that he always sends flowers to his mother on her birthday? Not really. Nobody is all bad or all good. We don't need to be reminded of what good things someone has done to point out all the bad things they've done, especially when those bad things involve hurting innocent people.
I think people have decided that "fair and balanced" means neutrality regardless of facts. Some actions are wrong, some actions are so wrong, in fact, that whatever good things someone has done are irrelevant. Some issues do actually have a right answer and a wrong answer, and just because there are two sides to an issue doesn't mean they both have valid points. That's the new definition of "fair and balanced" that the two sides of any issue are both valid regardless of merit. And that is simply NOT TRUE. Take slavery, for example, would you expect anyone to consider a "pro-slavery" argument to be equally valid and have the same merits as anti-slavery? Of course not. While not every subject has a clear right and wrong answer, some issues do.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder