The Rally to Restore Sanity (Did Jon Stewart get ahold of our schedule?)

This was a full week for World Politics. Interesting readings, interesting classes, (finally) a Wednesday lab, and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. And everything had something to do with each other. Out of all three readings for last week, my favorite was “Simplicity and Spook” which I enjoyed so much that even though I had planned to just skim the beginning and finish reading on Monday, I wound up reading the whole thing at once. It seemed to put into words a great many things that I had been vaguely thinking about but never was able to put into words. We see ridiculous and irrational behavior in reaction to political and world events all the time, and realize, on some level, that it is ridiculous, but rarely do we stop to think about just what makes it ridiculous. People in a frenzy of worry make assumptions and hypotheses based on first impressions, worst case scenarios, or the first possible explanations that pop into their heads. This is fine when there is no alternative, but the danger comes when, instead of accepting or dismissing these reactions in favor of rational, reasoned explanations based on analyzing accumulated information, they cling grimly to their initial hysteria as though afraid of being “proven” wrong. And so we manage to go for long periods of time taking what was meant only to be a possibility as the truth. Later, we scratch our heads and wonder how on earth we ever were so stupid, but that doesn’t always stop us from doing the same thing again.'

I thought that this article, reading it just one day after a rally to literally restore sanity, was perfectly timed. Speaking of the rally, I was both exasperated and rather thrilled that so many people turned out. Being new to D.C., I’m not sure I’m qualified to make a judgement on just how overcrowded the Metro was, but when I have to take the red line north all the way to Rockville in order to get onto the red line going south to Judiciary Square next to the mall, because every southbound train is jam-packed, it’s pretty obvious there’s something big going on. However, the time and trouble it took was still an encouraging sign that people truly are fed up with overreaction, insanity, and exaggeration to make a public call for everyone in the country to just calm down and think for a minute. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were hilarious as usual, and for the most part waved away political debate in favor of light-hearted lampooning and entertainment, but at the end, Stewart became serious, calling for the news media to report events with responsibility and reason instead of stirring things up until everything seems so insane we cannot tell who the real bigots, extremists, and, well, insane people are. This really struck a chord with me. After all, in America the people have a great deal of control over the actions of our government, and if we don’t have a clear picture of what the world is like, how can we possibly pressure our elected officials to act in a reasonable manner? Again, I would like to marvel at the serendipitous timing of the Rally and the schedule of our class. Perhaps it’s a good thing we went overtime on the Risk game.