Between 1797 and 1799 Spanish artist Francisco Goya made a series of 80 sketches and among them was one of particular interest.
In the sketch the artist draws himself asleep at his desk while above him fly a series of scary bats and other creatures.
On the desk in Spanish he has written the words “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”.
On the New York Metropolitan Museum of Arts website it describes the sketch and states that “The artist’s nightmare reflected his view of Spanish society, which he portrayed as demented, corrupt, and ripe for ridicule.”
Given the state of current events in the United States it is possible that we are wading through a nightmare where reason and rational discourse have slept and we create monsters around every corner with every breaking news story. It’s Ebola, ISIS, Vladimir Putin, Home-grown radicalized Muslim Terrorists, dangerous illegal immigrant children. The list goes on and on.
Remember the “potential threat to national security” posed by the lone gunman in Ottawa, Canada, which, as one news anchor reminded this viewer, “is just an hour’s drive from the United States border”?
By the time I had consumed a half hours’ worth of that story I was pretty sure that the gunman was a 16-year old radicalized Honduran Muslim, an Ebola-contagious illegal immigrant who had joined ISIS and was probably responsible for the Malaysian Airliner that had gone missing over the Indian Ocean (not to be confused with the Malaysian Airliner that was shot down over Ukraine). Worse yet he was just an hour away from our country.
Okay, so I am exaggerating a bit … but in both politics and the media we create and play on irrational fears, building up low-risk threats into “imminent dangers” to manipulate an audience or constituency.
Those fears demand immediate reaction from the authorities.
We have confused immediacy in the decision-making process with true leadership and look at reasoned deliberation as a weakness. We’ve been given brains, and the ability to think out various scenarios and assess and separate realistic threats from improbable dangers. Insurance companies have formed an entire industry betting on probabilities.
So why do we criticize those who wish to use them and gather information before acting?
Lincoln was one of the great deliberators of all time. He’d rather wait a day and get things right, than react too quickly and get things wrong. Often when he was angry he’d write a letter to address an issue, put it in a desk overnight and the next day throw it away. He strove to never let the emotions of the moment get the best of him.
We’d have eaten him up in the current news cycle. In fact, even in his day Lincoln was often criticized for the slow pace with which he replaced generals or made other war decisions. Thank God he didn’t give in to or listen to an army of pollsters and spin doctors. All that his patient style of leadership did was save the Union.
Today social media has cast a spell over us, producing an ether-like haze that anesthetizes reason and allows the monsters in the deepest recesses of our brain to spring forth and haunt our society.
Reason has taken a back seat to the monstrous politics of our time. If a political opponent wins, we’re told he or she will act to end your rights and the American Dream. That is countered by what the other candidate does — depicting an opponent as the puppet of an unpopular national politician, who has been cast as somehow sinister in his or her own right.
It is complete nonsense.
We deserve better from our leadership, but we fail to demand better; often because we can’t.
We live in a world where parents and families are moving constantly from work, to school to youth activities to maybe a second job to make ends meet. Many good people simply do not have the time to get all the information, so they rely on Facebook or Twitter for news and get the sound bite talking points from political ads.
The slick ad agencies and spin doctors have done the focus groups and the polling. They’ve figured out the data and crafted messages that will resonate most effectively. They know their voting blocs down to the street and they know where to insert their message into an increasingly fragmented society. The media also knows who is watching, when they’re watching and what they’re watching and can target their audience with stories that will keep news consumers tuned in.
The challenges in our immediate future will demand intelligent reasoned deliberation to create continued American leadership. What we cannot have are decisions that are made in haste because of the fear-mongering that can take root when reason is lost and allowed to sleep.
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