Much has already been written and said about the current state of US politics by people who are much wiser than me. Of course, probably much more has been written by others 😂. It is undoubtedly true that – for anyone – anything that threatens ‘their’ world view will be seen as ‘bad’ – that is, I think, an inbuilt knee-jerk response. For that reason, initial (and perhaps ill-considered) reactions are often not a good representation of ‘reality’ – and we will come to how much is ‘real’ in a moment.
That being said there is, for me at least, a feeling of “oh no, here we go again” today with the prospect of four years of chaotic leadership in the US. Elsewhere I wrote that we have entered the age of the reality tv generation – and I am not saying that in any positive sense. I do not have the in depth knowledge of Donald Trump’s rise to fame, however from all that I have heard it had little to do with him being a “good business man” and much more to do with being able to afford to escape consequences in a way that most people could not possibly contemplate.
Yes, I can see exactly why he is popular with his base – he tells them what they want to hear, regardless of whether there is any conviction behind his remarks. Now that he is elected I doubt he will care what they think of him anymore – although he will keep feeding them the lies that will keep them riled up against his opponents.
I am pretty sure that I have said before in these writings that I treat anything that ANY politician says with a certain degree of scepticism. Whilst I don’t doubt that there are “good” guys (and gals!) within that community too often they need to “toe the party line” – and that is not always a bad thing. The problem is that for many in the population it is much better to hear that the leadership knows what they are doing rather than – as is I suspect mostly the case – hearing that they ‘think’ that A might be better than B and you also mustn’t rule out C, D and E.
How many of the decisions that are made “in the corridors of power” are based in knowledge and certainty? Very few. More often than not it is, at best, a good guess as to what is the right course to take. All that I understand and, of course, sympathise with.
The problems arise when the course that is chosen is patently NOT the right one for many people. Especially when those making the decisions are basing their actions on what is good for them personally and (largely) ignoring the detrimental effects on others. The problems become worse when those in power basically stop being accountable to the populace because their power makes them untouchable.
That all being said – something that few people do well is to consider the fact that they might be misinformed about something – or worse – disinformed about something. Not so long ago it was far more difficult to know what was going on “elsewhere” – and the farther away “elsewhere” was the longer it took to find out. Now, of course, we have pretty much instant access to everything that happens anywhere – yes, that is not actually universally true, but for the purposes of this note it is not an unreasonable assumption.
We see – in real time – what is happening on the other side of the world. The result of that ‘knowledge’ is that we believe that we now ‘know’ all about it. The reality is that we know very little of the context. Sometimes the background will be filled out given time – but sometimes there will be nothing to counter the first impressions – and those impressions are inevitably “biased” by our worldview and may have little relation to the actual situation.
We each have sources that we deem trustworthy – we each have sources that we immediately doubt. Reconciling the differences in the ‘news’ that we are being fed can be well nigh impossible. It is all very well knowing that misinformation and disinformation is being fed to us alongside ‘reality’ however, for the most part, we do not have the cognitive tools to distinguish one from the other.
The way in which we choose to deal with the issue will vary from person to person. For me, it is important to think that – just perhaps – my interpretation might actually be the wrong one; my “trusted source” may have got it wrong this time. All of which is complicated by the fact that the sources themselves will (again inevitably) make changes to the way in which they view events.
Some years ago I wrote a blog post which is still in draft form along the lines of “Does Truth Matter” (now finally published). It remained in draft form because it is still incomplete – perhaps one day it will see the light of day. What I will say here is that for most (?) people the truth is heavily coloured and manipulated (sometimes just a little sometimes a huge amount) by the source of that truth since very little of what is fed to us is first hand knowledge.
Excessive questioning of sources can, of course, lead to conspiracy theories taking root. There are also plenty of credible sources that (at least sometimes) misinform or disinform either accidentally or intentionally – and there may actually be good reasons to withhold information at times for “the greater good”.
The wonders of serendipity have once again been at work as – having written what is above – I came across a video which helps explain some parts of this specific issue.
Clearly this is coming at the subject from a slightly different perspective – and I guess I have a natural reticence about describing stupidity – however it shows very clearly that phenomenon has been around for a long time. I am also reminded of the Dunning-Kruger effect where they illustrated the fact that it is necessary to become knowledgeable in order to realise how little knowledge one has – I am deliberately paraphrasing there. In the words of the video it would be more like some people are too stupid to realise that they are stupid. I 100% go along with the distinction between intelligence and stupidity that is called out in the video. It is most definitely possible to be clever and stupid at the same time – IQ (or however you wish to measure intelligence) is not correlated with stupidity in this definition.
Unfortunately there is a fundamental problem when it comes to dealing with this issue. No matter how good videos like this are it is impossible (or at least nearly so) to enable them to reach the audience that most needs to see them. Looking at the comments on YouTube most are applauding the content – agreeing with the thesis – lamenting the amount of “stupidity” that is around. Only a very few are commenting from any sort of opposing views. I suspect that there are a number of reasons for this, but I also suspect that the most important reason is that those who ‘need’ the information will not get it.
The few who are in the population which is deemed to be infected by “stupidity” will – most likely – have an extremely negative reaction to this sort of content as it undermines what is their way of life; their belief system; their worldview. Thus, sharing the video will, for the most part, only result in really reaching those who already share the ideas contained. This raises the spectre of confirmation bias. The fact that we only read/see/think/pay attention to things that are in agreement with our worldview and disregard all evidence that contradicts that worldview only serves to reinforce the stupidity – and, who is to say that we are not the stupid ones.
I don’t have the answers, but how do we get “people” to start to recognise the potential flaws in their own worldview? Does it have to be in small steps or can we find a compelling way to burst the bubble?
Whatever the answer is, those who are questioning their sources are important – they give rise to the idea that behind all the misinformation and disinformation there is a reality which – unfortunately – includes the misinformation and the disinformation and the processes and systems that create and consume it. Ignoring the “wrong stuff” is nearly as bad as believing it – it most certainly is a part of the reality that we live in and must be understood – not sidelined.