#37 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday May 24)
Friends,
I have spoken a lot about the explosion of misinformation in cable TV and social media. It is a cancer. It is strengthened by two other phenomena of our times—the inability/unwillingness to employ critical thinking skills, the vilification of the media (the “enemies of the people”) and the marginalization of experts (eggheads with the goal of undermining our American way of life…).
TEACHING MEDIA LITERACY AND CRITICAL THINKING
On the list of things that need to be taught in high schools is critical thinking and the development of media literacy. Too many people seem unable to identify a lie when it’s being told, critically analyze misleading data or even identify whether the message they are reading comes from a real person or not—preferring instead to have their biases confirmed by whatever source is at hand.
Adam Torson says that “baby boomers are credulously lapping up dis- and misinformation is causing the world to fly apart at the seams. Perhaps we should require people to renew their HS diplomas with a little continuing education. :).” This runs contrary to the commonly held wisdom that it is young people who are transfixed by the repeated non-news being thrust their way. Baby boomers are as vulnerable—even more so—to believing lies in the media. This article speaks to this problem: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/older-people-are-worse-than-young-people-at-telling-fact-from-opinion/573739/
Another problem with information not only is the inability to critically think but the inability to discern the bias of the speaker—or even if there is a human speaker. We are being thrown so much information from various sources, many of whom are robotic “trolls” trying to stimulate our desire to hear information that validates our thinking. Adam Torson provides this fun exercise on the subject. How successfully can you spot the troll? https://spotthetroll.org/
VILIFYING THE MEDIA AND INTELLECTUALS
A key part of the Trump machine’s attempt to recast American democracy and pit us against each other was to remove the media as a credible counterweight to Mr. Trump’s authoritarian impulses. His repeated labeling of “mainstream” media as the “enemy of the people” was repeated enough by someone idolized by his believers that it started to gain traction. But it’s not just a problem here. One can see this played out around the world and throughout history. The media offers a check on excesses of the government (as do inspectors general, also a favorite target of the Trumpists). Just as China and other authoritarian regimes are able to restrict and delegitimize the press as they control their people, regimes regularly discredit, diminish and threaten the media.
But there is a similar, perhaps even more insidious attack going on, and that’s the attack on the intellectuals. Today, “experts” are denigrated and diminished, as if their intelligence or expertise is a threat to the Great Leader. This is not surprising. A despotic regime needs to erase the thinking of the past, and neutralize the challenges of science, logic, and statistics.
Alan Rosenbach has put into words something I’ve been thinking—namely, why go after experts as a group? When you read this, I hope you will have that “aha” moment that connects control of information, the spread of lies, and the removal of those most able to call out those lies:
“I still remember learning about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. At the time, I could not understand why Mao arrested or killed university professors and other segments of the intelligentsia. My confusion had nothing to do with the immorality of these horrors. After all, a considerable portion of high school history was spent learning about man’s inhumanity to man.
Morals and ethics aside, I tried to understand how arresting accomplished intellectuals would somehow help the Chinese economy or government. It would make sense for an authoritarian regime to arrest any intellectual expressing opinions that run counter to the narrative preferred by said regime. But why arrest chemistry or engineering professors who were apolitical? I could not answer that question.
Over the past year, I entered a similar confused state that I experienced in high school—about a seemingly unrelated topic. I could not understand how a vast portion of this country could not identify the falsehoods proffered by Fox News, or notice the newly developed histrionic personas developed by Don Lemon or Rachel Maddow to attract viewers. Suddenly, the long dormant question from high school that was never answered arose from the depths of my frontal cortex. I finally was able to answer the question.
Only a small segment of society can recognize falsehoods. A smaller segment has the capacity to formulate an argument against such falsehoods or propaganda. An even smaller sub-segment is open minded enough to criticize leaders of their own tribe. Mao realized that this small segment of the population would be largely restricted to the most educated among the Chinese at that time. Instead of waiting for someone to criticize the regime, Mao cast a wide net to arrest a significant portion of the intelligentsia. Mao wasn’t very concerned about his wide net being inconvenient for the innocent among those arrested. High school question answered.”
CRITICAL THINKING IS CRITICAL
We have to teach our children to evaluate information received, the source of that information, the bias of the source, and the accuracy of the information.
Have a great week,
Glenn