Ducks, Rabbits and Politics

A familiar optical illusion from more than 100 years ago by an unknown German artist asks viewers if they see a duck or a rabbit. Some see a rabbit first and then realize it could also be a duck, and vice versa. It has been reproduced many times for many purposes, but I think it is particularly illustrative of the political situation in America.

Newscasters and citizens puzzle over the divisiveness, and the answer is simple. In politics, some people see a “duck” and some see a “rabbit.” But unlike the optical illusion, many refuse to see both or even admit that the other exists. The Democrats blame the divisiveness on the president, at a convention filled with negative messages and predictions of disaster. They insist it is a “rabbit,” and the president and his backers, misguided “duck” people are dangerous.

The Republicans send the opposite message with no possibility of compromise because it’s definitely a duck. It can’t be both; even if sometimes each side is wrong, those errors are amplified into end-of-the-world scenarios. Divisiveness is inevitable.

It’s impossible to get the truth – that there is a little bit of validity in both viewpoints – because the media is complicit. Here is an observation from a book published thirty years ago called Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be, and if anything, it’s truer today than ever: “The media take the raw material of experience and fashion it into stories; they retell the stories to us, and we call them reality.” Different outlets are creating many different realities, but the realities they create must fit their pre-established stance on each issue – in this example, is it a duck or a rabbit? 

What passes for the news today is more closely related to a morality play from the Middle Ages than to an objective delivery of facts. The stories must have drama, good guys fighting bad guys. And who fits those roles is dictated by the underlying assumptions. So we get similar stories about the same facts that, after the story creation process is complete, bear little resemblance to each other. If there is no easy way to make your side the good guys, the story is buried or omitted.

This is obvious to anyone watching or reading the news carefully. It’s as if CNN/New York Times and Fox exist in different universes. They construct for us different realities without apology. Editors lose their jobs over opinions or headlines that don’t conform. One local television station in Indiana advertising for a news reporter listed as one of the qualifications: must be a good storyteller. The goal of investigation is to build a story in support of their accepted reality.

So we find ourselves in a political power struggle where any concession is seen as surrender, where every event has at least two interpretations, where every single subject and virtually every opinion become political, where last week’s issues disappear in a rush to cover the latest controversy. There is always another side as politicians tell their own stories and accuse others of telling lies or intentionally misleading.

The real events, pseudo-events (like the recent political conventions), behaviors and quotations are fictionalized to promote the designated heroes and villains. Social media compounds the problem not only by repeating favored stories and attacking the other side, but also by acting as a source of fresh stories, memes or opinions for further development. 

As soon as the rabbit-seers take a position, the duck-seers publicize the opposite side, and vice versa. Solving the problems takes a back seat to proving who is right about the rabbit or the duck. And everyone knows they are right, because they heard it from their favorite storyteller, and usually ignore or mock the rival storyteller.

This is not going to change after the election, no matter the outcome. Our enemies and economic rivals around the world are watching and laughing, not at one side or the other, but at the ridiculousness of the self-inflicted chaos.