How Do We Know What Takes Priority In The News, Or In Studying History For That Matter?

(The following is a short answer/comment in response to a question raised in someone else's post, which I thought opened up an important larger question. The discussion was regarding the seeming deluge of recent events which are more earthshaking by the day, as to be almost overwhelming)

None of these developments makes sense without context. We've gone through a kind of shift in the last 20 years which has made us vulnerable to the seemingly incomprehensible descent into extremes and contradictions.

First was a "Twenty Years War" in the aftermath of 9-11, which was in many ways a religious war, declared not against a Nation or group of Nations but "radical Islam", now defined as our new enemy replacing the defunct Soviet Union. In addition to the human and economic toll this has taken, this has contributed to an explosion of Christian Fundamentalism and given outsized political power to religious leaders. 

Second, we have gone through a cultural change driven by the Internet, Reality TV, "News Entertainment",  and Social Media which has had the effect of spreading deep cynicism, celebrity worship and a philosophy of "living in the moment", instead of planning for our futures. Ironically, the more "connected" we become electronically to everybody, everywhere, the more access to "information" we enjoy, the more socially isolated we become, and the more vulnerable to disinformation. From a political standpoint, our young people are largely preoccupied with climate doomsday and dystopia scenarios from film, see their career options as limited, and to a great degree have small hopes for the future.

We have had a vast disparity in wealth since the tearing down of financial regulation, in which now people become obscenely wealthy gambling on bubbles that aren't real, like Crypto, NFT's, SPAC's, or mergers and acquisitions. Thus the culture of gambling has since predominated in business.

And despite the best efforts of our scientists and Healthcare professionals, roughly 40% of our population has been driven to a kind of madness by the combined effects of the Pandemic and the malignant covid misleadership of the most destructive President in history. 

Additionally, one recent factor of change in that 20 year period not to be understated was the two term election of Barack Obama, which as historically great an accomplishment as it was, triggered a full blown revival of the beast of White Supremacy, which took root in the GOP and Trump candidacy. 

The real story is not Congress, Trump, January 6th, or Vladimir Putin. The story is the cultural shift over the last several decades, the changes which have radicalized, beaten down and polarized Americans. You can't look at these things separately. 

For myself, I look at (and write about) news which addresses directly or indirectly what has happened to our people. Why were we so vulnerable to all of these developments, how did we let it get so far?  If Democracy is going to survive, it has to start with the moral and intellectual condition of "We, The People" who are its lifeblood and engine. We have to look at ourselves first and our personal relationship to "events" day to day, because the news of the day and events in isolation do not define us. Our ability to make sense of all of this and bring about meaningful positive change is primarily an identity question, not as many people cynically believe simply a matter of "Money equals Power" in politics.  As concerned citizens and consumers of news, should we not be asking, "Who are we, and what are WE doing" before we ask "what are THEY doing".

The young John F. Kennedy when he was studying history at Harvard was preoccupied with the roots and origins of the awful decisions of the British Establishment regarding Appeasement of Nazi Germany, leading to World War. He wrote a thesis entitled "Why England Slept". It is flawed and now obscure, but very insightful, as he looks at the period between the wars and the cultural pessimism in the British people as what drove the later events and led to the failure of leadership, not the other way around.

He believed that the historically disastrous pragmatism of the British establishment was caused by their inability to mobilize a war weary and economically beaten down population which had grown rabidly isolationist, therefore the leadership accommodated to that prevailing popular sentiment. That is not the whole story, insofar as whole factions in England and the Royal Family were pro Hitler, another huge factor. Kennedy's own father Joseph Sr. was a key figure in the Appeasement policy as US Ambasador to England, which is why FDR fired him. 

The main point made by Kennedy, and which I agree with in principle, is that the health of a Democracy depends on the cultural outlook of its people, not "the government", or the media, or big opinion makers of the day. Our outlook on life is what determines our relationship to government, as well as our ability to effectively resist when it is misused against our common interests.

In that sense, we get the government we deserve. That is what I think about when I read the news, and before I write anything. 

(Photo: a young John F. Kennedy at his graduation ceremony at Harvard)