In The Spin Zone

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.