[Neurons] Election Reflections: MAP & TERRITORY --- MEDIA & REALITY

[Michael Hall]

L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #49

November 8, 2024

Election Reflections

[My personal opinion]

                                                                        

MAP & TERRITORY

MEDIA & REALITY

 

During the last three days, since the historic landside victory for Donald
Trump in the US Elections this week, there has been a flood of postmortems
now occurring on all of the news channels, cable news programs, podcasts,
and radio talk shows.  Everyone is trying to figure out what happened and
why.  Within nearly all of the categories that typically vote Democrat
(women, Hespanics, Blacks, Jews, young people, families making less than
$100K, etc.) people broke at unprecedented  levels for the Republicans.
Surprisingly one group that increased for Harris were people making more
than $400K a year (the 1% wealthy).

 

Now prior to November 5, if you listened to the mainstream media (ABC, NBC,
CBS, CNN, and even Fox, Newsnation, etc.), you would have thought that it
was "the tightest race" ever.   It was "razor thin."  That's what they all
said.  But no.  What the media presented and the reality of what people
thought and did were miles apart.  The mental map that we received from the
media and the actual territory were not the same at all.

 

Now to add to the gap between media and reality is the fact that the media's
reports, stories, and framing about Donald Trump was 90% negative and for
Kamala Harris it was 87% positive.  The media was definitely and highly
biased for Harris and against Trump.  No wonder we got a distorted picture!
No wonder what we saw and heard via TV, newspapers, radio, social media and
what we experienced at the grocery store, the gasoline station, the monthly
electric bills, mortgage and/or rent bills, etc. were worlds apart.  The
world of media and the world that we live in were not the same.

 

That's the thing about the reality of the territory, it is what it is in
spite of your mental map.  And whatever the mental map-it is just a map.  No
matter how strong your bias is for your map-your beliefs and your
confidence- it doesn't change what is.  Being told that inflation is now
"lower" does not lower the price of eggs and bread, and especially when you
mean "the rate of inflation is lower now than it was."  Being told something
does not make it so.  Whatever the facts on the ground are-that's what's
real.  The verbal spin about it is someone's interpretation about it.

 

Korzybski said "The map is not the territory."  There are several excellence
metaphors of that metaphor: "The menu is not the meal."  "The sex manual is
not sex."  "The picture of your children in your billfold is not your
children."  Korzybski also said that a map is only good and useful (not
particularly 'true') if it's structure is similar to the territory.  Then
you can use it to navigate the territory-you can use your mental map (your
thinking, believing, understanding, etc.) to achieve your goals and
experience what you want to experience.

 

So in NLP and Neuro-Semantics we ask, "Does the information (map) correspond
to the reality?"  "What are the brute facts on the ground and not the
so-called 'facts' filtered by the bias of the speaker?"  Untrue facts
mislead our minds and emotions because they distort what's real.

 

Why did Trump win?  The good news is that people distrusted the media.  They
trusted their own eyes and ears, their own pocketbooks when they shopped
more than what the media told them.  That's good.  It means that the common
people-especially the working men and woman used their common sense.  It
means, to quote Lincoln, you can't  fool all of the people all of the time.

 

The media said that crime was down, but it wasn't and we could see new
levels of crime going on all around us.  The media said the border was
secure yet we could see thousands coming across the border every single day
adding up to millions unvetted people entering.  The media said Trump was
dangerous, a Hitler, a Fascist, a Felon, etc., but we saw him preparing
fries and serving hamburgers at the drive-through and getting into a garbage
truck with the appropriate vest.  What the media did not say is who Trump is
dangerous to-not the everyday person.  He's a threat the elites and the
bureaucrats.

 

Map and territory-they are not the same by any stretch of the imagination
and that's why we put such a big emphasis on clear, critical, and creative
thinking.  Your mental map and mine come from how we think.  For democracy
to succeed, there needs to be an educated populace-people need to think for
themselves and speak up.  There's been far too much censorship and social
pressure against questioning.  To Speak Up, Speak Clear, Speak Kind, see the
small book with that title.  For thinking clearly, critically, and
creatively, see Thinking for Humans.  When you graduate from that book, then
you'll be ready for Executive Thinking.

              https://www.neurosemantics.com/products/ 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

 



 

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