Chasing Deer and Political Clarity

When Scarlett and I walk in the woods, she generally likes to chase deer.  We're in a part of Pennsylvania where deer are really plentiful.  We joke that it took about three weeks after we moved here to get sick of them out in front of the house ("oh look! Bambi!" became "oh look! vermin!").    But they are beautiful in their own way, especially when the dog and I come across them, in various ways as we walk in the morning.  She smells them before I see them, I see them before she chases them.   Is she trying to catch and kill them?  I don't think so. Squirrels, yes, she has a death wish for squirrels.    We have evidence for that one.   But the deer are big.  And usually fast.  So, sometimes Scarlett runs a bit until the deer have effectively cleared out or she can't smell them anymore and then she doubles back and finds the spot where they were sleeping, standing, peeing, and makes sure she smells it thoroughly, adding her own scent for good measure.   Other times she chases them a long way, for a good run, and only comes back to me after a while.     There was only one incident where I thought she was interested in hunting seriously, a story involving walking in the woods with my 80 year old mother and coming across a buck who'd been hit by a car.  It wasn't pretty and I won't go into it, but I think that we can safely say that Scarlett has instincts but she's not using them most of the time.

That, I think, sums it up for me regarding Amazon's recent attempt to "map" the political landscape of readers by the red, blue, or purple books that are bought, by state.   Red and blue, as you probably know, stand for Republican and Democratic.   Purple is a political book they can't easily lump into one or the other category.     So, we're supposed to get a sense of the country's reading and politics by this map.   Hmm...  

Well, first this reminds me of another blue/red map, created by Bill Dietz and the Centers for Disease Control when they wanted to convince people that obesity is an epidemic.   Irrefutable evidence, you say?  While I'm the first to acknowledge that there's definitely a public health problem related to our food system, I'm not jumping on the "obesogenic" bandwagon, especially since it's already pretty crowded with people who want to use that information for a whole host of unsavory campaigns to villify individuals for their "bad choices" and "lack of willpower."    What amazed me when these maps came out was the way Dietz described his frustration in getting people to pay attention to what he saw as a growing problem and then his delight in creating this powerpoint, where the blue darkens, turns orange, and then red, creeping across the country.  As he expected, it has become one of the most powerful tools in presenting the information in a form that encapsulated the points he wanted to make: that it was an epidemic, that it was spreading, and, given the not-accidental use of red, it was cause for alarm.  

I love images.  I'm enamored of mapping programs and graphing social trends, despite my lack of sophisticated computer skills.   At the same time, I'm skeptical about a society that needs a graph rather than words to really grasp a problem.   I'm in the middle of a freelance project (unnamed, but mentioned previously as "that damned project") where I'm expected to take an enormous amount of historical information and present it in a colorful, interactive, and "fun" way that "makes history current for students."   I pretend that's not my mission or else I'd be gagging all the time, but yes, half of my day is spent evaluating bad powerpoints, youtube videos ("how America travelled west"), and interactive games designed to keep students engaged.   The director isn't happy when I email him every few weeks stating, "can't they get that information by actually READING???"    So, yeah, I'm having some problems with the whole notion of "visual interactivity."

But, back to Scarlett's deer chasing and the Amazon map.  I think Amazon's map tells us about as much about America's reading and political inclinations as my observations tell us about Scarlett's instincts.  I have no way of knowing what she really intends, nor do I have any tools to get beyond the superficial vantage point from which I see her world.   I can draw a lot of inferences, but there's no causality here.   I can point out all the obvious flaws with Amazon's technique: these are people who, based on my recent purchases, think that I'm an evangelical Christian interested in spiritual dieting and Jewish ritual and an avid sci fi fan who wants to learn fifty ways to draw birds.  I'm also going through puberty and menopause at the same time,  searching for out-of-print Shakespeare manga, learning to cook barbecue and vegan at the same time, and concerned about proper etiquette as an African American woman in the corporate world.   I wonder if people actually READ the books they buy or if they sit on the coffee table, proclaiming their knowledge or get wrapped up for holiday gifts...   Let's not even get started on the criteria they used to determine if a book was "blue, red, or purple."   Honestly,  I like to believe my deep blue friends in Massachusetts are actually reading Sarah Palin's ghost written autobiography --  mainly so they are actually informed about why she's not qualified -- and I know they're smart enough to get it from the library rather than actually paying $30 for it.  (I, for once, am satisfied with Tina Fey's impersonation and Palin's response. You can watch the clip and Jon Stewart's reaction on the Daily Show.)

But why map the obvious to determine politics?  Are political leanings developed only in direct relation to the world of elections, Washington politics, and international policies?   What would the map look like if we charted people's other reading habits?  My mother in law is just finishing a Faulkner phase -- who else is reading Faulkner besides college students? --   and she claims that Faulkner, who is writing about the south in an earlier time period, is teaching her a lot about the " bitter and angry" Pennsylvanians who live around her and why they feel that way.  That's political education, isn't it?  If you went to my "GoodReads" list and you looked at the fiction I like, would you color me red or blue? If I love Marilynne Robinson, does that mean I'm religious?  If I'm bored by Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollen, am I a closet Republican?    

I know Amazon isn't purporting to offer a scientific understanding of the relationship between book purchases and political viewpoints, but just as I wish I had some other skills to give me insight into what goes on in Scarlett's brain so I know what she's doing when she runs the deer, I'd love to play with more information about who reads and what they read and what it does to shape their thinking.