On Politics and Tipping Points

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...a job.

I am beginning to conclude that the Obama administration is working to make sure that the American voting public melts down under the weight of too much information and too many issues. Then they will go back to their couches and remotes, and let him do all the wonderful socialist things he has dream of accomplishing to "fix" America.

That is how this week felt. I am reading Malcolm Gladstone's Tipping Point. It is a fascinating explanation of how epidemics of all kinds happen. On the reverse, why some don't. What Obama would like to see is the "epidemic" of citizen involvement in the democratic process halted. Overloading the public with issues they will want to fight against is a really good way to shut it all down.

Let me explain. In his chapter on the "Power of Context (Part Two)" Gladstone explains the "concept in cognitive psychology called channel capacity, which refers to the amount of space in our brains for certain information (175)." It is the reason for the seven digit phone number--it is the biggest number we can still remember. Eight digits? Forget it, most of us do not stand a chance. Additionally, there is a limit to our ability to keep things categorized before we fall back to a default position. We do not have the capacity for keeping more than six or seven categories straight before we just begin to put things in to two big categories, hot or cold, sweet or not sweet, high or low, important or not important. We lose the ability at a certain point to keep a long list of subtle distinctions.

I recognized this phenomenon instantly when I read this part of the book. Last winter, after the Inauguration, I shut down. It was winter in Illinois,(reason enough to shut down), I had company, the issues were flying fast and furious, so much needed attention that I did not even know where to start. I shut down. I did not write, I did not read as much news; I watched movies, read mysteries, and had endless tea parties with my granddaughter. The other Tea Parties fired up in April, and I knew about them, but life was still in the way. I joined a 9/12 group in the summer, but then I moved. It was a whole year before I got back to writing on my blog. A whole year before the one issue of health care crystallized over all the other debris of life to focus my thoughts enough to write a coherent blog post.

Any of this sound familiar? I have many friends who shun politics for a host of reasons, but I suspect this overload of channel capacity is what gets most American most often when it come to politics. I am a political science major and history teacher. I live and breathe this stuff. But my friends? Ordinary, working Americans? Not so much.

It is changing though, especially among my friends back in Illinois. There is a group of them at church that are becoming regular firebrands. Campaigning, donating, joining--things they had never done before.

So are we at a "tipping point" of citizen involvement in our democracy? Yes, we well could be. Can it still be derailed? Of course. Just throw too much at us at once and we might, quite predictably, shut down. Can we let this happen? NOT THIS TIME.

I hope Obama has not read this book, but I think more thinking Americans need to. It is an excellent look at how we as people act and react to the world around us.

I will give a small clue to how big things happen. They happen because of the smallest and most innocent little shifts, nuances, looks, and words. Small things matter. Individual actions matter. You matter.