Maybe just a small lesson – but an important one. We should always look at context and not cherry-pick that which confirms our bias. In particuilar, we shouldn’t simply repeat social media claims without doing a bit of fact-checking for ourselves.
It’s an important lesson at the moment because there is a lot of this going on in the social media hysteria surrounding the US presidential elections.
I was called out recently because I shared a Facebook meme questioning the moral authority of people like Madonna (who regularly makes lewd public performances) making moral judgments on the lewd language used by President Trump in a private conversation many years ago. The commenter suggested her lewd performances were irrelevant and that I should instead criticise her for making stupid and distasteful comments about blowing up the White House.
So, I decided to check out what she did say – and the video above is the section of her speech at one of the Women’s Marches where she referred to bombing the White House.
Putting Madonna’s famous comment in context
Now, I realise that the secret service is required to check out people who make comments like this – but it would be a perversion of justice for them to take any action against her. The context of the bombing comment makes clear she used the expression of personal thoughts as a rhetorical device to bring home her main message – which supported the direct opposite of such a terrorist act. In fact, she specifically said such an act would be pointless as it would change nothing (she is clearly wrong there as there would surely be huge changes – but you get my point. She was not advocating anything like bombing).
Madonna has reacted to the news the secret service will investigate her with this comment:
“I am not a violent person, I do not promote violence and it’s important people hear and understand my speech in it’s entirety rather than one phrase taken wildly out of context.
My speech began with ‘I want to start a revolution of love,” Madonna wrote. “I spoke in metaphor and I shared two ways of looking at things — one was to be hopeful, and one was to feel anger and outrage, which I have personally felt. However, I know that acting out of anger doesn’t solve anything. And the only way to change things for the better is to do it with love.”
I think that sums up what she did say in that section of her speech and her critics should take that lesson on board.
But, not only her critics – also her supporters and allies. It is telling that one of those commenting on her explanation wrote:
“You want people to listen to your speech in its entirety and not a phrase taken wildly out of context….hmmmmm isn’t that what you and your followers have been doing to President Trump all along.”
To my mind, the extreme partisanship of social media commenters, and the #fakenews promoted by mainstream media, has often relied on such cherry picking and removal of context. It started early on in the US election campaign and is still proceeding. The recent rather undignified spat over the numbers attending the inauguration in the Mall, and the numbers observing it internationally on TV is just one example. It reflects how childish – on both sides – this spat between President Trump and the mainstream media has become.
Nor does it impress me that some otherwise rational social media commenters have taken the unfortunate “alternative facts” statement completely out of context to use as a political whip. Although, I suppose it does not surprise me. Even the most self-declared rational of us can be very irrational at times. It is part of being human.
Partisanship and a biased media is counterproductive
I wish we would all calm down and attempt to be more rational and critical in approaching news media reports of the current election hysteria. On the one hand, things do run a lot better when we avoid confirmation bias, partisanship and cherry-picking. (And we wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of being ‘unfriended” on facebook for questioning things).
On the other hand, I think this opinion piece today from Frank Bruni in the New York Time makes a point that opponents of President Trump have seemingly been oblivious to (see The Wrong Way to Take On Trump). This lack of critical thinking, the cherry-picking, partisanship , confirmation bias and #fakenews from a biased media, actually helped Trump win the election – and is currently probably helping to cement support from those who voted for him. He writes:
“There’s so much substantive ground on which to confront Trump. There are acres upon acres. Why swerve into the gutter? Why help him dismiss his detractors as people in thrall to the theater of their outrage and no better than he is?”
And why risk that disaffected Americans, tuning in only occasionally, hear one big mash of insults and insulters, and tune out, when there’s a contest — over what this country stands for, over where it will go — that couldn’t be more serious.”
I am sure that last point happened with people who may have supported or considered supporting Trump during the campaign. Once you have heard or seen a few reports full of what you know is #fakenews, personal attacks, partisan commentary, insults and swearing you do tend to turn off. You do tend not to trust future news reports, especially those ridiculing your possible electoral choice. And in the more committed cases, this experience of news you know to be fake means that from then on you will whole-heartedly accept the #fakenews from your own side. “The other side lied so what your side says must be true!”
In my own case, I know the experience of the partisanship and media bias during the US election campaign has made me very untrustful of the mainstream media – in fact, all the media. I now refuse to accept claims made in the news as factual until I can check them out for myself. I have sort of done this with Madonna’s speech here.
That means more work and a resignation that there are many things I will not form an opinion on (because I don’t have time to fact-check). But I feel better about myself – even if some of my associates may be upset that I don’t go along with their current thinking.
Note: The video above is also out of context – being just the part of Madonna’s speech relevant to her bombing comment. If you are really interested you can find her full speech here. I watched it and found myself becoming less and less sympathetic to her so won’t post the video here as it would sort of distract from my point.
Open Parachute 
Madonna proclaimed he wanted to ‘blow up the white house’. For her to expect a super hyped audience to appreciate the subtitles of her metaphor was irresponsible. However, if her comments were taken out of context then the same courtesy needs to be afforded Trump’s ‘pussy’ comment years ago. Let’s not be hypocritical here.
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In the main you come across as someone who is advocating that an opinion should be formed by awareness of the Big Picture. Excellent advice.
Beginning to see this as a genuine attempt to present a non-biased approach to this topic, I was then disappointed that you undid all that at the end! To retain credibility I feel you needed to omit the final sentence of your Note: By all means direct people to Madonna’s full speech … but that should suffice . End the article there. People can then make up their own minds whether to watch it. If they do , then they again form their own opinion on its contents . By adding YOUR reactions to the speech, before they hear it, is a journalists trick to wet people’s appetite for the fact it must be somehow controversial. You stated you wouldn’t post the video here as it would ‘ sort of distract from my point’ , yet you couldn’t resist insinuating that watching the full video might result in people losing sympathy for Madonna’s ideas. I have watched it in its entirety but I do not intend to disclose my reactions here. That would serve no purpose in this instance . I do however always seek the Big Picture and do my homework before forming an opinion.
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@angelaevans773 There is no way you could be any less offended by Trump’s ‘pussy ‘ comment in it out of context. How does this make it sound any better?! Trump, in a 2005 conversation with a television host that was caught on a live microphone, describes a failed seduction, saying: “I did try and fuck her, she was married,” and says that when he meets beautiful women he feels able to “grab them by the pussy”.
“You can do anything,” he tells Billy Bush, the TV host who is a cousin of George W and Jeb Bush. “They let you”.
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Take your point, Fiona, and it was a thought I had while typing up the note.
However, in the end, I am not advocating for Madonna’s ideas – just using the example to illustrate a huge problem we have at the moment – on both sides.
I really don’t think Madonna’s ideas, or speech, are of much value – and in fact am quite cynical about her presence and need to perform. And I did find it offensive to have her point her finger at me, as someone who might think a bit differently to her, and say “Fuck you!” I don’t think she will be playing a constructive role in building protests around the specific issues of concern to the ordinary person in the street – people she may see as customers anyway.
I didn’t actually give reactions to her speech or get into discussing her ideas – they were not pertinent to the subject of the article and should be dealt with elsewhere. All I said was I “found myself becoming less and less sympathetic to her.” The simple truth, but not worth discussing in the article.
But I did feel that as I as discussing the importance of people looking at context and avoiding confirmation bias that I should not leave just a selected edit of her video – that is why I provided the link.
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