When disagreement starts with a sucker punch

Thinking. About Business.

Cooling Lozenge

When disagreement starts with a sucker punch By Steve Schulz Argument in what we call “news” has burst into an eruption of insult. Recently, we heard officials calling honorable people “wingnuts”, “terrorists”, and “Satan sandwiches” with a zeal that made us turn away and cover up. Imagine, an important writer recently responded to another panelist’s argument with, “Well, when I look at this rationally …” meaning the other guy’s conclusion was irrational. He was, in fact, saying to someone whom he hoped to persuade, “You’re nuts, so let me tell you irrefutable truth.” Can you hear communication’s door slamming shut? Actual rationality probably means covering yourself up … maybe poking your head in the sand just to protect it from getting pockmarked by rhetorical embers. Beneath the sand, things are quieter, but also darker and suffocating. We have more media sources than any people in history. And in their zeal to get noticed, all outlets jack up the heat. That’s always been the way. To sell papers, last century’s yellow journalists created wars. But back in those primitive days before broadcasting, there were far fewer media, and the printed word was a lot quieter. A century later, they bang at us unrelentingly: 24/7/365. They rant on paper, monitors, speakers, screens, posters, buses, billboards … they squeal through PDAs, iPads, iPods, computers, movies, music, radios, podcasts, cellphones, and TVs. Message packets are relentless, and the din is simultaneously deafening and scalding. And they niggle their way into so many conversations that if you’ve missed some one or another charge or invective, you seem almost as if you’ve lost touch with your family, friends, and colleagues’ culture. There charges accelerate on each new round as people try to protect themselves from insult by slamming back harder. I wish they’d remember that when tempted to fight fire with fire, fire departments usually use water. How many times do I hear myself almost apologizing for, well, not wanting to go with the negative and sensational flows? Maybe it’s because I’m in the publishing business that I’m particularly reluctant to get snared by the sensationalists’ tactics to grab at my hard-earned bucks. Maybe I’m just a little inoculated against those methods by what I do, or maybe I’m just fooling myself. What I can do, though, I do. Here at Business2Business, we work to peel the veneer of lava from all of our work. That storm of searing media packets dedicate us to creating monthly practitioner journals that instruct and inspire. And we work at connecting data to find information that’s useful for managers as they expand or shore up their bottom lines. We don’t sugarcoat those teaching moments, since I’m convinced that while experience is what happens to us, competence is what we learn from it.

1

www.business2businessonline.com

Thinking. About Business.

We’re not trying to protect anyone from reality; heck, reality is our business. No, we’re trying to protect our content from the stench of invective’s brimstone that has our culture coughing. I hope you’ll think of us both as a refuge from rudeness and as a throat lozenge for the mind. How are we doing?

2

www.business2businessonline.com