And before the Internet there were no Ponzi schemes, no Pyramid schemes, no tulip mania, no extraordinary popular delusions, no madness of crowds.
People were safe, they could go to libraries and be assured that everything in them was true, because there is "authority control" there. In the 80s before the internet was a factor, there was an amazing moral panic that swept the country - in fact, the english speaking world and beyond. It was called "ritual abuse" and it was simply a warming over of the Jewish blood libel, but with the anti-semetic aspects downplayed, so a wider net was cast. Members of Christian sects (or any mainline church that could be portrayed as a sect), pagans, and Satanists (a dumb, harmless, rather sad little religion) were targeted.
Books such as "Michelle Remembers" and "Satan's Undergound" were shelved in the religion section of public libraries. You don't find "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in this part of the library, and you shouldn't find books like that there, either, but there they were. I worked to have the local library move them to fiction or sociology (not remove it because people should know about these things) but it was fruitless. They accepted their classification from a higher authority. When the moral panic had subsided, the books just quietly disappeared, which was also unfortunate, because this is an aspect of human nature most people are largely unaware of.
Librarians, I think, in general are loathe to admit they are ever wrong about anything, they'd rather just sweep problems under the rug.
Not that librarians or libraries or library science have solutions for human irrationality. We are monkeys with unpredictable biocomputers made out of the same gray gruel as anybody else. The ritual abuse mania isn't entirely gone yet, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody replied in protest that they were molested by satanists (or Satan himself) or aliens or the Portland Trailblazers, and how dare I make light of such a serious problem (at least as serious as that unicorn in their living room).
Colin Powell sold a criminal act of staggering magnitude to the American people by standing up in front of everybody and showed us a vial of talcum powder and stringing together a series of lies that any three-year-old should have been able to see through. I don't recall librarians in any great number urging people to use their information literacy to reject these state-sponsored lies. Not that it would have mattered. People believe what is convenient to believe, and Reagan was right when he said "facts are stupid things."
Information literacy like Western Civilization, is a good idea. Maybe somebody will achieve it someday, but I'm not holding my breath.
On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 2:07 AM, Joel Pierce <jdpierce@u.washington.edu > wrote:
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interesting story about what happens when people are a little to ready to believe what they read online appeared in the Seattle Times. Probably useful material for all those information literacy courses where you've got to talk about distinguishing "on the internet" from "credible":
http://seattletimes.nwsource. com/html/ localnews/ 2004302237_ webhoax24m. html
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