An interesting and hopeful analysis. However, I'm not totally persuaded. My brother is a dittohead. He's always had a screw loose, I think something in him wants to be mislead. He takes to lies the way an alcoholic takes to drink. I think people have innate predispositions towards being members of the reality-based community, or the faith-based community.
In the age of Bush, it's difficult to attach much value to "good information." For those of us that saw through the lies from the very beginning, and had so much difficulty in the early days communicating it to anybody, and now being members of the majority, and realizing that said information is still entirely irrelevant.. Here is a link to a transcript from RFK Jr.'s timely speech at ALA
Annual, on the function of information in political manipulation.
http://lb.princeton
(Click on the "captioned text" link and skip the 14 pages of introduction.
My favorite part:
"Americans today, we're the best entertained and the
least informed people on the face of the earth. And that's
a real problem in a democracy because you cannot have a
democracy very long without an informed public. [Applause.]
I tell you, I do about 30 to 40 speeches a year in red
states to Republican audiences and I get the same reaction,the same
indignation and anger from Republican audiences
when I tell them...about what the
Administration is doing that I do from a liberal college
kids. The only difference is that the Republicans come up
to me afterwards and say, 'How come I never heard this
before?' I say, 'Because you're getting your news from
Rush Limbaugh and from Sean Hannity from Fox News.' I came
to the conclusion many years ago...that 80% of Republicans are just
Democrats who don't know what's going on."
He goes on to quote a recent study conducted by the University of Maryland:
"They surveyed Americans based upon their party
affiliation and their knowledge of current event, and what
they found was that there was a huge information deficit
among people who said that they voted Republican.
For example, 70% of the people who said they were going
to vote for George Bush or voted for George Bush said
that they believe that Saddam Hussein had bombed the World
Trade Center. 70 percent believed that weapons of mass
destruction had been found in Iraq. 65 percent said they
believed the American invasion of Iraq was
strongly supported on the Muslim street and their
neighbors, which of course is wrong. 64 percent said that
they believe that President Bush strongly supported the
Kyoto protocol and strong labor and environmental standards
in our international treaties...
They went back...to find out what people's
basic values were. They did that by posing a series of
hypotheticals. They said, for example, what if there were
no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? What if Saddam
Hussein had nothing to do with bombing the World Trade
Center? What if the American invasion was largely opposed
on the Muslim street and among our traditional allies in
Europe, should we still have gone in? 84 percent of
Democrats and 84% of Republicans said the same thing: We
should not. So the values were identical. It was only the
information that made the difference. That's why it's so
critical for us to have good information in a democracy."
Of course, not everyone--in the media or in this program--draws as clear
a connection between the related concepts of "information" and "being
informed" as Kennedy does. But this is worth thinking about, I suppose,
if you believe that "information professionals" have a worthwhile role
to play in our society.
Bo Kinney
MLIS Candidate
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