Its Reality Stupid!

It sometimes seems to me we typically in the U.S. live in a reality vacuum. Reading a story in the NY Times about the exit polls from the PA primary, you get the sense that when we "analyze" (I use this term very loosely) results of a contest what we are really doing is expanding on a fiction plot which has received its bare-bones outline from the interaction of pollsters making up questions to ask, and a few people answering them (40 precincts in the Edison/Mitofsky poll). The networks then look at this outline, and depending on their predilection for mystery (will Clinton make a comeback?), romance (she put up a good fight, but will lose in the end), or adventure (the ongoing drama will kill the Democratic chances), and finish the plot.
The interesting thing about these polls is that the "Reality" they point to is a reality created than a reality reflected. In some ways its really similar to Lucretius' (and a few others, like Marx) argument against religion, i.e. they are made by humans in order to deal with a reality that is too harsh for them. The reality in this case is that we have no clue as to why people vote the way they do, and as to what the outcome will be. We don't want it to be true that we cannot categorize human action, because then this would really make us question a whole host of other assumptions, like the economy (as if this is not really the biggest fiction of all), or energy, or "America," assumptions that we have, pious fictions as it were that allow us to go about our day.
Again, perhaps this is another instance of Calvin's insistence that we are a factory of idols.