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ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: "The Citizens Have Won" (1/9/2010 11:24:11 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: InvisibleBlack
I'm not sure what's driving this need amongst people to believe in the most outlandish and bizarre theories.
Do you think the rise of the Internet is fueling this somehow?
Well...off the top of my head, I see at least 2 questions in there. What is driving the need, and what is feeding the phenomenon.
First of all, I think Madame Thorn hits pretty close to the mark with her theory about the appalling state of science and math education in our schools, but that's only part of it. In my opinion, it's not just that our education system doesn't teach kids how to think critically about science (although that certainly does seem to be true) - it's more that we're not teaching our kids to think critically, period. The mission of our educational system seems to have shifted; it seems to focus now on teaching kids how to memorize facts and pass tests, rather than how to discern what those facts mean, and fit them together to form a comprehensive picture of a larger issue.
Add to this what I see as a widespread and increasing feeling of confusion about world affairs - a growing sense on the part of many Americans that we just don't quite understand what is happening in the world, why it's happening, what our role is in all of this, and how we can exercise control over the situation - and what you have is an increasing number of people with a gut feeling that everything we thought we knew just a few years ago simply doesn't seem to be true anymore, and we have no familiar reference points that we trust to reassure us that we are in command of our own destiny. People don't understand what's happening, don't understand what to do about it, and don't know how to figure those things out.
A country full of people who, just 10 years ago, thought they understood everything that was happening in the world, and were in complete control of it, now have no idea what they know. None of what they once took for granted feels logical anymore, and they're just desperate for some information that "feels" right, so they can believe it and trust that belief.
And now, you add the internet to the equation. A medium that provides what is effectively an infinite amount of information; but at the same time, no easy tools for figuring out what any of that information means. For a frightened, relatively ignorant (by world standards) population, the internet is the worst of two worlds - unlimited information, but no simple, 5-second-attention-span way to identify which information makes sense and which doesn't. Superficially, the accurate information does not look substantively different from the totally wacko looney tunes, and a population that has not been taught how to think critically falls back on the worst possible method for assessing credibility - evaluating information on the basis of what sounds as though it fits what they think they already know. In other words, what do they want to believe? People are not looking to challenge their preconceptions, they're looking for information to confirm their preconceptions.
Instead of looking at something and asking whether it makes sense in and of itself, they're looking at it and asking if it fits what they already think. If it does, great - it must be true! If it doesn't, then it must be bullshit. And on the internet, no matter what you believe it's just a matter of time before you'll find something that confirms it. If crazy is what you already are, then crazy is what you're going to look for, and on the internet it won't take you long to find it and prove to yourself that you were right all along, because by god here's a website saying the exact same thing!
The internet is a marvelous tool in many ways, but over the last year or two I've come more and more to the conclusion that on balance, it's going to prove to be the worst thing that ever happened to American society. In any given issue, the lowest common denominator is never more than 3 or 4 mouse clicks away. We have doomed ourselves, because we as a species - and especially we as a society - are too ignorant, and too intellectually and emotionally immature to use this tool wisely. So instead, we use it foolishly. And will continue to do so until nobody, anywhere, really knows how to think at all anymore. Thank god that I'm of an age where I'll only have to see another quarter century or so of this disintegration of of our culture.
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