the form of a discussion rather than actual discussion

i caught a bit of saturday view today and it just confirmed to me the reason why i don't listen to or watch political shows anymore. they basically only have the form of a debate, people sitting around together talking about issues of the day but unlike an actual debate there's no real information exchanged or real understanding of the views proffered.

the reason is the stupidity of the topics and the essentially talking head nature of the programmes by which i mean the tendency (it seems to me) of the participants to simply take turns to make speeches and not to actually have a debate. the discussion on these shows tends to be full of meaningless phrases and buzzwords which have very little meaning and convey no information and result in no actual argument but a kind of argument by label, i.e whether these phrases/buzzwords have a positive or negative connotations to the audience. the use of vaguely defined words or words that have an ambiguous meaning result in either misunderstandings or pretty meaningless answers.

that happens most with questions and answers where basically various interest groups and politico's get 3/4 of an hour to deliver un-illuminating propaganda. i'll do a separate post about that programme.

anyway back to saturday view and the very first question sets the tone....

is there a fear now that we are building more of an economy than a society ?

what i'd like to know if anyone has heard of a false dilemma? why is it asked as if the two were mutually exclusive? also the inherently vapid nature of the question renders the resultant answers both vague and pointless. first off we build neither an economy or a society, as both are the name we give to the emergent outcomes of the interactions between people.

they are not built as that word is usually used which implies working from a plan to get to a specific outcome. it's this kind of sloppy use of language which deludes all kinds of social engineers into thinking that with just enough legislation and spending that they can change the ''plan'' and build a better (as defined by themselves) society, economy or whatever.

take the examples above.... society, economy and some of the words used later in the show like quality of life, social cohesion, celebrating diversity. what the fuck do these mean exactly to people who used them? using words that have ambiguous meaning just results in other people not understanding exactly or even generally what you are saying. how the fuck can you have a discussion like that? what's the point of listening to a show like that?

take ''debates'' on immigration for example. celebrating diversity means what exactly? what actions does that entail? or the option usually expressed in opposition to that assimilation. assimilate to what exactly? what are the values that immigrants should have gained so that they may be deemed assimilated? who decides what these values are? but all you get on these shows are people bandying about these terms as though these terms had not only a very definite meaning but that also the audience knows them.

totally fucking pointless waste of time.

sorry about the ranting nature of the post