I’ve
seen Bill O’Reily….a couple of times. He says that his commentary show is a “no
spin zone”. “So, what is spin?” you may ask. Well, I’m glad you did! Spin is
the ability to take facts and twist them or “spin” them to make them seem to be
in your favor.
Now,
you may say to yourself, “Self…isn’t that called lying?” The modern answer is “no”!
You see it’s not lying because the truth didn’t change. We all know you can’t
change the truth. We just change the presentation of the facts so it appears in
our favor.
Let
me see if I can demonstrate this using our current political climate.
Politician
A accuses politician B of doing something that the voters won’t like.
Politician A will “spin” the facts so it looks bad for politician B. Politician
B will deny the accusation of politician A and give a rebuttal to refute the
accusation by “re-spinning” the information and thus making it appear to be in
his favor. Of course, if you’re listening to their words, you will be confused.
Due to the spinning and re-spinning, the situation will be totally unrecognizable.
You must remember, neither politician is lying! They are merely restating the
facts in such a way as to make themselves appear favorable to you.
How
about TV sitcoms, we are told that the sitcom is a laughable reflection of
modern culture. Have you ever seen a husband & wife sitcom where one or
both individuals will skew the facts in order to paint themselves in a
different light to the other. This, of course, is part of the sitcoms strategy
to earn a few laughs from the viewing audience. It usually works.
The
good thing that has come out of all of this “spinning” is that there are no
more liars in the world, just different points of view. So, now we don’t have to deal with the guilt
and stress of telling the facts as is. Nor do we have to be suspicions and wonder
if others are telling the facts. All of that is alleviated by “spin”. We just
need to accept what we are told.
So,
in the future when a child puts a “spin” on his or her story to make themselves
appear more favorable, do not say they are lying. They are merely learning from
the adults.
