Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind
Emily Dickinson
I keep returning to a mantra: "progressive radio." Progressive news is always bad. The progressive picture is always bleak. At the level of policies, decisions are mostly suicidal. But most of those hearing the news have no access to policy, without giving up their lives, and maybe still - no access to policy. So progressive news builds up in its hearers a pressure of anger, frustration and grief -- which the hearers also feel obliged to let build up, as the price of knowing the truth. I can't think that it is good for the children of Niger or the citizens of Baghdad that their most natural allies and advocates are poisoned and blistered in this way. It seems to be part of the story about why terrible conditions persist, this bit about the build-up of impotent rage and frustration.
What's needed is a different way of telling the truth, a way that starts people out in the morning with a connection to life.
My uncle who farmed in North Dakota used to listen to the radio in his barn early every morning. The show started out with "The Mockingbird Hill," went on to the farm price reports, interspersed some local news. It told him where he was: in a beautiful place, doing important work, part of a wider world. He could have made sense of more reality than he got. Nevertheless, the idea of that radio show was the right idea.
Radio gives us the conception we start from in the morning. It is our counterpart to the monastic "Matins." We have to find a way to do this better.
Posted by shea0017 at August 6, 2005 10:51 AM