Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

Filters for your safety and convenience.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

If it weren't for our well water, I wouldn't have such bizarrely orange colored hair. I eschew filters. Bring on the iron and rust. Our water comes unfiltered.

Filters are supposed to make things safe. This is done by changing the original. You have to want the original or want the safe version.

All this talk of filters brings me to the topic at hand: filters.

Filters include books, speeches, talks, magazines, the passage of time, culture, television and news reports, lectures, structured education -- anything that pulls together material across a broad range and then transmits it to someone else. Filters gather original material, filter it according to what is deemed necessary to know for the purpose or audience, and then let it through. Very few things are really raw; nearly all information we receive, unless we are standing in the middle of all things or holding onto source documents, is filtered. Everything is filtered, meaning I never really understand everything fully. There's always something that didn't make it past the filter.

But rather than go that direction, here's a couple of quick examples on a simple level that I observed recently.

Religion
We have this interview by Erwin McManus. Then we have this filtered version, sanitized for a particular audience's protection, by Ken Silva. Then we have the high irritation of people trying to point out to others that perhaps they don't need the Silva 2000^TM filter.

If you want to know what Erwin McManus said, go read the original source.

I'm not foolish enough to believe that commentaries on original material aren't valuable, because they are. Just as verbal conversations about books and philosophies are valuable -- Starbucks probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for this -- the written versions of an author's (i.e. "filter's") inward conversation and thoughts are as equally valuable. I appreciate the value of a filter as a kind of introduction to something I may not have know a thing about. Authors are filters, people who recommend something are filters. It all comes, filtered through them.

All good. Get a taste. Think you might be interested in something unfiltered? Great. Go to the source.

That is, unless your "filter" is turning more and more into a crackpot. Not all filters are created equal, and what gets spit out is only as good as the filter, not fully up to the original material. A good filter should definitely not change the taste or essence of the original material.

Evaluate your filter. Is it time to change it? For all the love and ease of a filter that culls important information together in a handy Reader's Digest manner, have you tried the real thing enough times to know when your filter has gone bad?

Media
The funny thing about televised news coverage is that people forget the obvious. It isn't news that you are watching, but what happened in front of the camera while the camera was on. The filter of the camera is notorious in that it would seem to capture a scene accurately while, at the same time, altering the scene by the mere fact that the camera is rolling.

Basically, you're not actually watching the news, you're watching someone:

tell you about the news
tell you what they think the news is

A great revelation of this occurred for me while I was in Bismarck this past weekend. As I sat on the Senate floor, Sen. Heitkamp (whose radio program I always enjoyed) was silent. He kind of rocked back and forth in his chair, listened to discussion, said a few "yeas" when a vote was needed, looked around, talked on his cell phone -- he was like anyone else. Then two local TV camera crews came in to film the Senate discussion and subsequent voting on an amendment for a bill that allowed citizens to kill in self-defense.

Glory be, Heitkamp stood up and gave a knock-down speech that would warm any heart. The two camera guys were in the perfect position and got a great sound bite. All Heitkamp needed was to wave a flag and pass out apple pie and I would have probably passed out in patriotic bliss.

Then the cameras went away. Heitkamp didn't say anything more. I watched him return to his casual posture in the back row. I watched him a lot, actually. In fact, at the end of the day when "do not concur" committee assignments were being handed out, I watched as Heitkamp screwed his face up in hilarious irritation each time he was assigned to a committee. Just watching him change according to the situation kind of made me appreciate him more.

"Heitkamp always gets up and says a speech when there are cameras around," one of the senators told me. "I think he wants to be governor someday."

No camera. No speech. Just constipated facial expressions during committee assignments.

Don't even get me started on the concept of the editing room, which is a filter for the filter. If you saw it on TV, it doesn't mean anything. Just because the camera crew always interviews the red necks after a tornado roars through a trailer park doesn't mean there weren't people around who could string together a few sentences without wearing a wife-beater.

Summation: We must have filters because there's too much out there in every subject for every single person to process all the time. By merely living in a culture and a time period removed from a subject, we are filtered. The point isn't to rage against the filter, but rather, to be aware it is there and question what's coming through it periodically.

I'm not sure which is worse, filters meant for safety or filters meant for convenience. Sometimes I really just want a sieve or colander.