Some recent conversations have taken place that lead me to consider what 'the Truth' is to many people. We are living in an era where information is readily at our fingertips, with a quick Google search you can locate an overwhelming amount of information on any topic. At the same time you have the televised media throwing the stories at you left and right. All of this is really just some background premise, none of this got me thinking. All of this is fairly obvious.
What got me thinking was when being told about the evils and woes of the new legislation(s?) going through the White House, I questioned the veracity of these statements. When the debater pitched Fox News I questioned the reliability of their stories in light of facts. In my experience they are fairly biased and will overlook important facts to appeal to their target audience. They countered with the statement that some 75% of the United States watched Fox News for their daily intake of current events. I did not know how to properly respond to this. He cited other popular media sources spinning pieces of this whole story. Again I did not have an effective counter to any of these citations. Not because I felt I was confronted with facts that ran contrary to my understanding but rather that none of this indicated 'the Truth'.
Stating viewer-ship as a gauge of the quality of a News Station is, in fact, an argumentative fallacy. The only thing this indicates is that 75% of the United States likes what Fox has to say, or rather 75% of the people who bothered to respond to the poll stated this. This number is meaningless, especially when trying to discern what is truly going on. When you subsequently factor in people like Glen Beck and Michael Moore, it just aggravates the whole situation. These individuals are a walking example of how some people can make confirmation bias into an art form. They build these house of cards arguments built on opinions that they state loudly enough and take to far enough extremes to make their next point seem more reasonable. It builds into a truly preposterous statement, but they toss a few polls are statistics that vaguely support their statement and suddenly they've 'cracked the code'. Taking a concept and instantly assuming that it must go to its most illogical extreme is not clever nor is it a good way make decisions about where we're going. These guys don't have some incredible insight, they're a television personality who knows how to appeal to their audiences. No different than any other television shows.
I can't really say that they're at the heart of the problem with how we interpret information. They couldn't make the impact they do if it weren't for every day people. The simple fact is that society is becoming more and more complacent to accept the information from these sources that aren't truly held accountable for the accuracy of their information. The Media as an organization has such a good opportunity in front of it, but no major news organization can truly stay afloat without sensationalizing and slanting every story that comes out. In reality Bloggers, VLoggers*, and other individuals who happen to a finger pretty close to the pulse of these major items are slowly becoming a cornerstone of the news. These people have opinions on the topics but they don't have the financial incentive to spin the story one way or the other. While not the lens of absolute truth, its a step in the right direction.
I think that, maybe today more than ever, the Truth is becoming somewhat irrelevant to Society. People are more interested in validation of their beliefs than about how things really are. This latest legislation debacle has been so polarizing due to the media stoking the fires. The problem is that nobody felt driven to look at these bills and examine what they are stating. Most were hooked into somebody's Cult of Personality and immediately jumped into action, either for or against this whole thing. Once upon a time I might have very well been standing in support of some of these activists, spouting fire and brimstone right with them. This would have been prior to my 'Disaffected College Student' phase of my life; my approach to the politics has been tempered significantly since then.
When I was confronted by the debater, mentioned in the second paragraph, my first gut reaction was 'That seems a bit strange, I'll have to look that up.' This did not quench their fire, they continued to press the point citing various news organizations that have covered the topic. I tried my best to stand by my 'Let me research this and make my own decision.' but they persisted. It mostly ended with me pulling out my phone and looking up some of these items to check the facts. Unsurprisingly, I was right: their claims did not hold weight, they were missing key details that would put them in perspective and not sound like the beginning of the end of society.
This has turned it a longer post than I originally intended, but I've only got a few closing thoughts on this one so bear with me. I think we as a society owe it to ourselves to start researching these hot topic items before launching campaigns like 'the Tea Party'. We tend to lose credibility in the eyes of the Government when we can't even adequately describe what we're fighting against. I think its fine if you don't like what the current administration is doing, its also okay to be totally in support of it. Its not okay to decide to support something you have no understanding of whatsoever. If you're passionate about something, get the facts, the Government can't make decisions based on people saying something 'Feels right/wrong to them.'
Nations don't work that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment