Critical Thought

I feel a rant coming on.  I Love the internet. I love that information is instantly available.  The knowledge of the universe is at our finger tips. And Knowledge is Power. Instant and unfettered. Uncensored and unverified.  Frankly, there is more crap on the internet than real information.  But that isn't really a problem, we have been so bombarded with crazy advertisements and false claims that most people know that you can't believe most of what you read, or hear, or see.

People with degrees in psychology get paid very big bucks to manipulate us through advertising, or even set the mood in a bar (lights in many bars are graded to be brighter higher up, fading to warm bronze colors at face level, so everyone looks tan and healthy, fostering the "in crowd" feel).  This post is not really about the evils of corporate advertising, although it is one of my favorite rants. Advertising is at least honest in the respect that you know the motive is to sell you something.  Buyer beware, etc.  No, this rant has more to do with the constant barrage of half truths and warnings that come to me through email, face-book, texts and all other forms of electronic media.  This is a rant against all of the people that are trying to keep me safe from computer virus'. poisonous products, terrorist plots, and fake chicken.  And to all the people that are defending us from the amoral decisions of our political leaders, sneaky plots of the fraudulent charities, conspiracies of suburban housewives (OK, some of these may be true), and the horrible murderous trend of groups that are secretly gay, Muslim, vegetarian, or not Caucasian.  Even just cute heartwarming stories about how some of favorite songs, sayings or cultural icons came to be.

These things become quickly viral.  And it always seems to me that the more outrageous the claims, the more people are going to jump on them as true, respond and repost.  I'm sure I drive all of my friends crazy, because I'm the one that always checks things out on Snopes.com and sends links to all the people that got the original post. Except, not always.  When it is politically motivated, slanderous drivel, I often just sadly shake my head and delete it, because the people that send it are probably not interested in facts, but in propagating something that supports what they see as the truth. I'm a little embarrassed by how much I trust Snopes.com, I will freely admit it is the lazy person's fact check site.  I'm sure they make mistakes, but at least they seem to make an effort to try to weed through most of the crap on the internet.  

Recently someone sent me a beautiful, sad and poignant story of the origins of the song "Taps." Of course, it was complete crap, but harmless, and the perpetuating a myth that strengthens the power of the song.  This is what parables, fables and even religious texts count on.  A story that powerfully conveys the sentiment, in these cases, facts are not as important as the truth they convey.  Where the rant part comes in is when the post begins with the announcement: "This is true!" "I checked it out on Snopes" or "My grandmother's 2nd cousin's great nephew works for the national confederate library, and he researched this for her." This stuff drives me crazy, especially when 30 seconds of a lazy google search result in a debunking of the story, and any claim to legitimacy. These are the kind of stories that so support a beautiful myth, that if it were not for the wild claims of legitimacy at the beginning, I wouldn't have even looked at Snopes, in fact, I may have reposted it, just because it is a good story.

My Favorite Faulkner quote is something on the lines of: "poets are not interested in facts, but in truths."  I'm sure I mangled the quote - funny that it came from the Snope's trilogy - I just realized that. but this principal is what makes poetry, legends, mythology and art WORK - because they portray truths that are greater than the truths that we can grasp with our mere senses, the "facts," those constantly misleading bits of information that can be use to tell greater lies as well as larger truths.


Many years ago, sometime during Desert Storm, my mother gave me an "article" that someone had printed out for her.  Computers were not as ubiquitous as they are now, where misinformation can become almost instantly viral,but this was making the email rounds, and someone had gotten a copy to my Mom.  The article explained how decades of horrors visited upon us by the Muslim world, and justified a "no holds barred" approach to Iraq. Total destruction was perhaps too good for this monstrous civilization. Now we did not have a computer immediately available, and I had not heard of Snope's yet, but in reading the article, I saw that the discrepancies were obvious, and the tone abundantly so.  You have to realize, my Mom is VERY intelligent, and not quick to judge, but the article was playing on fears that she had harbored since my Aunt and Uncle had visited the Middle East, back when Iraq was our friend.  As I handed the article back to her, I pointed out that not a single incident listed mentioned Iraq.  That all of them were the acts of terrorist groups or countries whose only association with Iraq happened to be global geography.  It would be like blaming Canada for the bombing of Hiroshima, or the domestic terrorist acts of Timothy McVey.  But there we go, loosely associated "facts" strategically placed to draw conclusions with no basis in truth.

I think, as culture, we are losing the power of critical thought.  This is scary to me, as I feel that being able to analyze and interpret the information being thrown at us is our best bet for survival and growth as a civilization, and as individuals.  With great Power comes great Responsibility.  We are living in an age of fear, and I personally feel that few of our fears are grounded in fact.  Our fears are based in mistrust, and a constant barrage of misinformation that supports the fears and mistrust that we started with.  So please, please, please check your sources.  Especially if the post you are about to send out inflamed your passions, anger, or fear. Chances are they will also add to the general fear and mistrust of your larger social network.  How sad is this that?  Especially if the information isn't factual,  or if you are stirring ugly passions with 1/2 truths designed to mislead or support an agenda of fear and outrage.