Monday, April 8, 2013

Lawrence Davidson — Why Americans Are So Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for it

In 2008, Rick Shenkman, the Editor-in-Chief of the History News Network, published a book entitled Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter. In it he demonstrated, among other things, that most Americans were: (1) ignorant about major international events, (2) knew little about how their own government runs and who runs it, (3) were nonetheless willing to accept government positions and policies even though a moderate amount of critical thought suggested they were bad for the country, and (4) were readily swayed by stereotyping, simplistic solutions, irrational fears and public relations babble.
Shenkman spent 256 pages documenting these claims, using a great number of polls and surveys from very reputable sources. Indeed, in the end it is hard to argue with his data. So, what can we say about this?
One thing that can be said is that this is not an abnormal state of affairs. As has been suggested in prior analyses, ignorance of non-local affairs (often leading to inaccurate assumptions, passive acceptance of authority, and illogical actions) is, in fact, a default position for any population.
To put it another way, the majority of any population will pay little or no attention to news stories or government actions that do not appear to impact their lives or the lives of close associates. If something non-local happens that is brought to their attention by the media, they will passively accept government explanations and simplistic solutions.
AlterNet
Why Americans Are So Ignorant -- It's Not Only Fox News, There Are Some Understandable Reasons for it
Lawrence Davidson | Consortium News

Why we are so screwed. Ordinary people don't pay attention unless they perceive that something affects them directly. So the level of collective awareness of major issues is abysmally low.




4 comments:

Dan Lynch said...

This is why you'll never sell MMT to the public by explaining how banking really works.

Instead, people want to know "what has MMT done for me lately ?" How does it affect their lives ?

Roger Erickson said...

Right. Good expose of the interaction gradient for any element in any network or system.

No mention of what to do about it, or when, or why.

One self-truth, people CAN cooperate when faced with a big enough challenge. When no outside challenges impose ... the 1st culture able to impose and explore their own challenges will win, hands down.

We've known that since anthropologists & psychologists first noticed the variation in curiousity and play behavior among "advanced" vs non-advanced species and cultures.

Face it. We are bored. We need to find insanely great things worth having America do. The alternative is cultural-obesity & cultural-diabetes, cultural-sclerosis, and cultural-gangrene.

Seen any symptoms of those maladies?

dave said...

the old "I got mine, screw you" and then there is this http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/glenn-beck-harris-perrys-public-education-pr

Anonymous said...

It's true that collectivities, by definition, are passive, just as by definition they are "average." However, there are collectivities and collectivities: the educational level of the American public is abysmal; the level of propaganda is very high; the level of distraction and decadent entertainment is very great. We have a decadent and quite ignorant population.