Public Discourse Statement: Paradigm Wars!!Confirmation Bias is peoples’ tendency to search for information that verifies what they already believe !Two people disagree on the benefits of IMF loans for Latin America, !! opposite positions neither person will likely ever leave!We tend to read stories supporting our own opinions, collect talking points from our chosen media, !! and pull out self-serving statistics like tricks we’ve been hiding up our sleeves!!A paradigm is a way of seeing, a world-view shaped by our upbringing, cultural history, !! what our leaders tell us, and how mainstream media interprets world events!Who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy, trouble in the streets - we rely on our news to tell us what it meant !!Decades pass, what we hear and see more-or-less reinforces our world-view, we live & breath a certain slant!Clips of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pounding his fist on the podium !ABC news shows his fleet of Mercedes, another corrupt dictator ranting his anti-American rant !!Once developing a world-view there’s much we take for granted!Globalization and free trade good for everybody - these are givens, it’s what I’ve always believed!Third World nations struggling due to local corruption and mismanagement!or Third World nations exploited by global economics - still waiting for their colonizers to leave !!Are the slums of Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua by-products of Latin American dictators!! or the aftermath of U.S. military coups and deals sealed by a World Bank pen!Your answer may depend on where were you born or who taught you history!Does all your information on Central America come from CNN? !!A paradigm is a way of seeing, our own world-view begins to form well before we can tie our own shoes!I pledge allegiance to the flag of a nation that never seems to lose !Textbooks written by the winners, U.S. a force for good, spreading democracy and justice around the world !One nation swells with pride, others cringe in fear - each time the flag’s unfurled! !Within a world-view there are variations !If your parents idolized Ronald Reagan you may see his war against Nicaragua as justifiable !! oh yeah - and all homeless people are lazy !If your parents idolized Jimmy Carter you may view Ronald Reagan as off-his-rocker crazy !!Confirmation bias shows a tendency for belief perseverance in the face of contrary evidence!So if you can’t help but defend U.S. interventions in Latin America!! there’s psychological evidence letting you off the hook!But if you’ve got the nerve to learn another version of Latin American history, I recommend you read this book!‘The Open Veins of Latin America’, Hugo Chavez gave it to President Obama, !! he said it was essential in understanding Latin American politics today!If this is enough of a reason for you not to read it - it’s called paradigm paralysis!! your world view is getting in your way!!!!!!!!!!Mike Murphy !MCM 2014!

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