Trinity In Mind: Rhetoric & Metaphor, Imaginal & Archetypal

Story. Culture. Knowledge.

Two elements: pattern and communication. What are the patterns of our communications along with the patterns of cognition and experience underlying them? How do we communicate these patterns when our very attempt is enmeshed in them?

It’s not just an issue of rhetoric and metaphor. It’s a stepping back and looking for a pathway to higher ground. A meta-language maybe is needed, but not meta in a way of making language abstract and detached. Death can’t speak for life.

I’ve never been in love with language. This could be seen as a flaw of mine as a self-identified writer. Admittedly, language is sort of important to writing. What I appreciate is communication, the essence and the impetus thereof, the desire to express, to be heard and possibly understood.

I have nothing against language. It just is what it is. My lack of love isn’t a hate; it’s a wariness. I’ve often found too superficial writers who’ve fallen in love with language. There can be a trap in linguistic narcissism. Even great writers can get caught up in their own cleverness. In these cases, it’s not always clear they’ve fallen in love with language itself or just the sound of their own voices.

Compelling language takes more than catchy phrasing and aesthetic sensibility. A writer or any other user of language has to first and foremost have something worthy of being shared and to be given voice. Language, however rarely, can touch something deeper. Then language isn’t just language.

It’s not the writer that matters, but the Other that is speaking through the writer. This deeper level is the imaginal and archetypal, the creative source.

Along with my lack of verbal romance, I have other ‘failings’ as well.

I’m prone to anti-climactic conclusions. This is because most of life feels anticlimactic to me. What can I say, I write what I know. The anti-climactic relates to another ‘failing’.

I’m also prone to a passive voice. Every writing manual I’ve read warns against this, but good advice never stopped me. It seems to me that a passive voice communicates something an active voice can’t, and that something obviously isn’t readily accepted by modern mainstream society or at least the English-speaking portions.

An active voice requires someone or something that takes action, but as I see it not all or even most of life involves action that is willed, directed or otherwise caused by actors. Still, the active voice is rooted in traditional storytelling. The question is: Are there other stories to tell and/or other ways to tell stories?

Our language determines our reality. So, what consensus reality is being reinforced by writing manuals? I’m not arguing against standard English writing. Certainly, I’m not arguing against compelling language and the active voice is more compelling; rather, I’m considering what we are being compelled by and toward.

The standard of compelling shouldn’t be its own justification. A soap opera is compelling. In fact, the average soap opera is more compelling to the average person than the greatest of art. Most people are compelled, usually mindlessly, by ideas and beliefs, metaphors and narratives that aren’t necessarily of much worthiness.

How do we judge worthiness? What is good writing versus what is great art? Does ‘good’ writing imply communication that is moral and true, whatever that might mean? What exactly is good and bad about the active versus the passive voices?

The most dangerous part about rhetoric is that we forget it’s rhetoric and mistake it for reality.

Trinity In Mind: Story, Culture, Knowledge

Story. Culture. Knowledge.

These three are the Trinity of my mind, of my personal reality.

I always return to these, but not usually at the same time. They all connect, though.

Culture and knowledge are how we typically speak of story without realizing it. Story interests me the most, in some ways. It’s because story can so easily be dismissed as mere entertainment that it has so much power.

Knowledge and story are at the heart of culture. They give form and expression. Culture is an ephemeral thing by itself. It’s normally invisible, until we seek out our sense of identity. Maybe more than anything, culture encapsulates our reality tunnel.

Story and culture determine what we consider to be knowledge and how we go about looking for it. They frame our sense of truth and reality. As such, they mediate the complex relationship between belief and knowledge.

I love knowledge, or rather I love truth, more than anything. I always have. I don’t know why truth matters, but I just know it does, know in my heart more than in my mind. I want to know the truth of everything  just because I do. It’s not so much the knowledge itself, but the sense of knowing; or else, when lacking, the ache to know, the intuition of something to be known.

I’ve come to realize, however, that story gets at truth like nothing else. Truth can feel impotent at times.  Truth needs story in the way lungs need air. People are convinced by story, not truth. A story that expresses truth is a force to be reckoned with.

I’m less clear about culture. It’s such a strange thing. I don’t know that I care about culture in and of itself, but I’ve come to understand that culture is what makes it all happen on the collective level. We don’t have culture. We are culture. It’s the whole fish in water scenario. We live and breathe culture.

I feel like I can never fully explain why these three things are so compelling to my mind. I’m not sure why it is so difficult to speak about all of this. Story becomes mere entertainment or otherwise a personal interest. Culture is simplified to notions about race and nationality. Knowledge gets reduced to factoids and data points. The profound nature behind them gets lost.

I wish I could write about these in a way that conveyed the depth of my sense of them… but you either grok them or not, I suppose.

Bashing My Head Against a Brick Wall: Love of Truth or Masochism?

I’ve come to a point of frustration. Let me explain.

A conclusion I’ve flirted with for many years is that humans are fundamentally NOT rational (which isn’t necessarily to say humans are irrational; a better word is ‘arational’). Humans have some minimal capacity for rationality, but I suspect most of what is considered ‘rational’ is too often largely just rationalization. This is no grand insight per se. Still, I’ve resisted it. I want to believe that humans can be persuaded by facts. I want to believe that truth matters. However, I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that people don’t change much once set in their ways (which tends to happen early in life). As such, people don’t usually change their minds even when confronted with new facts and new ways of interpreting the facts. It’s just that people die and new generations come along (with new biases). The best hope one has of changing another’s mind is to meet them when they are a small child. After that point, there is little hope left for any further change.

Debating most people is about as worthwhile as bashing your head against a brick wall. Even worse, the people most interested in ‘debate’ tend to be the very people who are least interested in truth. It’s rather ironic. People tend to seek out debate because they want to ‘prove’ themselves right, not to explore possibilities, not to learn something new. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. You might bash your skull to a bloody pulp before you find them.

And, no, I’m not excluding myself from my own criticisms. I know from my own experience how challenging it is to try to be ‘rational’ (objective, emotionally neutral, self-critical, aware of cognitive biases, being on guard for logical fallacies, genuinely trying to understand different viewpoints, being fair toward another’s argument, considering all the data instead of cherrypicking, and on and on). It’s hard enough for me to deal with all this within myself. It’s just too much to have to try to deal with it in other’s as well, especially when those others in most cases don’t want to (or don’t have the capacity to) deal with it in themselves. Spending so much time online, I end up interacting with many people who don’t bring out the best in me and who put me in a generally combative, irritable mood. And it’s my fault for being so easily effected. I’m the way I am. People are the way they are. There is nothing that can be done about that. In this post, I merely wish to explain my frustration.

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I’ll give some examples.

I recently wrote about the differences between Southern and Northern cultures. There are two ways of treating these differences. The standard liberal view is that cultures are different with both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aspects. The standard conservative view is that some cultures are inherently or fundamentally superior. The problem with the conservative view is that conservative states and societies don’t rank well on many factors most people consider worthy (education, health, economic equality, etc). The conservative will often dismiss this data outright or rationalize it away. And, of course, a lot of (most?) conservatives have little interest in conceding to the liberal view of openminded and tolerant multiculturalism. As a liberal, how do I win or how do I find a win/win middle ground of understanding? I often can’t.

When I was writing about the Southern/Northern culture issue, I also brought up the related issue of race and IQ because it’s a favorite discussion of conservatives. As a liberal, I have a bias toward believing in egalitarianism. It bothers me on a fundamental level that conservatives are always seeking to prove others (usually those different than them) are inferior. Nonetheless, I’m inclined to defer to science on these kinds of issues. Facts are more important than my beliefs and preferences. I take it seriously when conservatives reference studies suggesting a correlation between race (i.e., racial genetics) and IQ. Because I take facts so seriously, I’ve researched the subject extensively by looking at all the studies I could find along with meta-analysis of the studies. It’s true there are some studies that suggest a possible correlation between race and IQ. But what these conservatives don’t wish to acknowledge is that there are also many studies showing no correlation between race and IQ and also many studies correlating IQ to many other factors. Simply put, the data is complex and the research is inconclusive. There is no scientific consensus, as far as I can tell.

I find odd this conservative attitude. These conservatives will cite research that supports their preconceived conclusions while ignoring all the research that contradicts their views. They completely ignore the issue of scientific consensus. I’ve found conservatives quite suspicious of scientific consensus. Conservatives like science when it agrees with them, but they realize scientific authority is a two-edged sword. Once you accept scientific consensus, you eliminate your ability to cherrypick the data. As a comparable example, most conservatives utterly despise the fact that most scientists in all fields and vast majority (98% as I recall) climatology experts who are active researchers agree that the data supports the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). It took decades for conservatives to accept global warming was even happening, but seemingly most still don’t accept that humans contribute to global warming. So, despite the strong scientific evidence and strong scientific consensus, conservatives are wary about science when it disagrees with their beliefs. They’ll ignore what most scientists conclude about AGW and instead they’ll find the small minority of studies and scientists who agree with them.

Accordingly, science is just there to be referred to when convenient and ignored when inconvenient. I don’t understand this attitude. I just don’t get it. If the majority of experts agree about something, I won’t be so presumptuous as to claim that I know better nor will I simply cherrypick the data that agrees with me. Why would I do this? What is to be gained by such anti-intellectual tactics?

One last example. I was looking at reviews of some books by Jim Wallis. One reviewer (in reference to God’s Politics if I remember correctly) mentioned the abortion issue. The person was criticizing the ‘moderate’ position that Wallis was proposing. As I understand it, Wallis is against abortions except when they are absolutely necessary (such as to save the mother’s life) and so is against banning abortions entirely. This position is ‘moderate’ in two ways. First, it strikes a balance between the practical and the moral and seeks a middle ground between two extremes (of pro-life and pro-choice). Second, it is the view held by most Americans and so is the ‘center’ of public opinion. The critical reviewer was promoting the common conservative view that abortions are bad and so compromising principles is to let liberals win. In a sense this is true because compromise is a liberal principle but not a conservative principle. Polls show that liberals support and conservative don’t support compromise. Even independents, although more supportive than conservatives, don’t have a majority that supports compromise. So, when Wallis is promoting a ‘moderate’ position he is by default promoting the ‘liberal’ position. Also, on many issues, most Americans hold positions that are ‘liberal’ (even though Americans don’t like to label themselves as ‘liberals’).

It just seems like liberals in America always lose even when they win. The liberal can have facts and public opinion on their side… and, yet, liberals are treated like an elitist minority to be dismissed and distrusted. It’s understandable that conservatives are wary about science considering most scientists identify as ‘liberals’.

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All of this has made me increasingly pessimistic. I grew up among idealistic liberals which rubbed off on me a bit, but I’ve over time become cynical in response. What is the point in bringing up facts and analyzing the data? Those who agree with me probably already know what I know or are at least open to learning. And those who disagree with me probably won’t accept the facts no matter what.

My frustration isn’t entirely limited to those on the right. I often find a simplemindedness in the idealism and egalitarianism on the left. Even so, I rarely find the same radical anti-intellectualism on the left as I described above. Plenty of liberals don’t understand science and misrepresent scientific research, but they tend to do so out of an admiration (albeit a confused admiration). There are, for example, the New Age type liberals who want to turn science into a pseudo-religion about the beauty of nature and the wonder of the universe. It’s well intentioned even if naive. From my view, this liberal simplemindedness is mostly harmless. Liberals generally aren’t interested in trying to use science against some race or culture. This isn’t to say I don’t feel frustrated by the liberal New Age woo, but it doesn’t usually make me angry and it won’t make me lose all hope in humanity. Even if a liberal dismisses out of hand scientific studies suggesting a possible correlation between race and IQ, they do so because of worthy ideals of egalitarianism. Liberals want to make the world better for everyone, not just better for one group. Liberals are correct that many conservatives will use any scientific research, with or without scientific consensus, against those they perceive as ‘other’. Yes, we should be wary of ulterior motives when scientific research is being cited.

It’s hard for me to grapple with my frustration or to fully understand it. It’s my own personal issue (which relates to the depression I’ve experienced for a couple of decades), but it’s obviously not just about me. I’m a liberal in a society that is dominated by a conservative ruling elite. I see the polls showing most Americans agree with liberals like me on many issues, but none of that seems to matter. Those with the most power and those who are loudest aren’t generally the liberals. It’s rare for the majority public opinion to become visible such as with the protests in Wisconsin. The liberal majority is largely a silent majority. Most ‘liberals’ (whether or not they identify themselves as such) are ‘moderates’ and so they aren’t radicals who want force their opinion onto others. Anyway, polls showing what most Americans believe or support is quite likely irrelevant to most conservatives. Either they just know most Americans agree with them (no matter what the polls may show) or else the general masses isn’t to be trusted (any more than the intellectual elite).

I’m just frustrated. I have many non-fiction books that interest me and many posts I’d like to write if I had the time… but what is the point? Time is a precious commodity. I could be spending it on activities less frustrating. Yes, I enjoy learning new things, but the process of learning can be less than enjoyable at times because of those I run into while doing research online. I think I just have to accept that what interests me isn’t what interests most others, including in many cases most other liberals. I can get obsessive when my curiosity is piqued. It’s not unusual for me to spend weeks or months doing research and thinking about some subject before writing about it and it can take equal amount of time to gather my thoughts into the form of a post. After all that, very few people typically will ever read what I write. I largely do it for my own reasons and so this shouldn’t matter, but it does matter. It just makes me feel isolated. Truth matters to me in the same way God matters to a religious believer. Truth is my religion. There I said it. I know it sounds silly. I know most people don’t idealize truth in this way and to this extent. It’s because truth matters to me that I want to communicate my own understanding of truth. I want truth to matter to other people. I want to live in a society that values truth above all else. But that isn’t the world I live in.

Honestly, does truth matter? Why should it matter? Why should anyone care about truth?

My frustration makes me feel cynical, but I don’t want to be a cynic. Still, I do understand the attraction of ‘giving up’. As Thomas Ligotti once wrote, in response to superficial optimists (which can apply to all the superficialities of human society): “Once you understand that, you can spare yourself from suffering excessively at the hands of ‘normal people’, a pestilent confederation of upstanding creatures who in concert keep the conspiracy going by rehashing their patented banalities and watchwords.” I can’t begin to explain how much I sympathize with Liotti’s words, but he presents a conclusion of radical pessimism that goes far beyond even my own frustration. What I like about his advice is that bashing one’s head against a brick wall becomes unnecessary and avoidable once one realizes the brick wall for what it is. The brick wall ain’t going to move, not easily anyway. Even the best of us can only bash our heads against a brick wall for so long. I can’t say I’ve given up on my ideal of truth. I just need to let my fractured skull to mend a bit for the time being. Maybe I should read some fiction.

When Stupid People Don’t Know They’re Stupid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/18/health/among-the-inept-researchers-discover-ignorance-is-bliss.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolved-primate/201006/when-ignorance-begets-confidence-the-classic-dunning-kruger-effect

News IQ, Education & Politics

I just took the Pew News IQ Test.  I surprised myself by getting 9 out of 12 right.  My results apparently mean I’m more well informed than 78% of Americans.  I don’t know if that is true because the test is rather short and limited.  It basically is only testing for factoids which I generally don’t test well on, but the multiple answer format allowed me to make educated guesses on a few questions. 

I’m more well informed about socio-historical context (poll data and demographics, history of ideas and movements, etc) and I think socio-historical context is more important than specific factoids.  Any motivated person of reasonable intelligence can look up a factoid, but understanding socio-historical context takes years and decades of wide-ranging study.  Memorizing factoids is less relevant in this age of search engines and Wikipedia.

I’ve seen different surveys over the years that show different groups as being most well informed about news and politics.  At one time, Rush Limbaugh’s audience was one of the most well informed about politics.  I think a later survey showed that Jon Stewarts audience was the most well informed.  The ironic part is that neither Limbaugh or Stewart are news reporters.  I took the Pew Political Typology Test a while ago, and I tested as a Liberal (59% Democrat; 40% Independent/No Preference, 1% Republican) which I felt proud of because it’s the mostly highly educated group and one of the top groups in following the news.  Related to this Liberal demographic, I’ve mentioned a number times recently the fact that most scientists identify as Democrat or Independent which means they’d probably fit into this Pew-defined category of Liberal.

My point for bringing up those examples is that I’m not sure what it ultimately means.  Does it matter whether Limbaugh’s conservative audience or Stewart’s liberal audience is the most well informed about news factoids?  A better measure would be how well people understand the context of those factoids, and I think general education would be a better measure of the larger context of knowledge.  The ideal of the liberal college education was that it gave you a broad range of knowledge and so made you a well informed citizen.  If every citizen could be made to memorize some basic factoids, it would probably be a good thing… but would it really create a well informed citizenry (and would it increase rational, thoughtful, and insightful public debate)?  Without knowledge of the history of culture and ideas, without knowledge of the social sciences and the physical sciences, how can one understand the larger meaning of news factoids?  Without having learned philosophy, logic, and critical thinking skills, how can the public analyze the news, look past the spin, and gain deeper insight?

Many conservatives argue that the education system is biased towards the liberal and some even believe the world is ruled by an intellectual liberal elite conspiracy.  Even ignoring the conspiracy theories, I don’t see any evidence that liberals are controlling education in any obvious way.  It’s just as likely (or even maybe more likely) that being well educated makes it more probable that one will lean towards liberal values.  A major liberal value is trying to understand from multiple perspectives (which moral conservatives dismiss as relativism).  Another liberal value is the ideal of ideological neutrality (whether or not such a thing is possible) when assessing data (whereas moral conservatives take pride in openly embracing ideology).  This is why liberal reporters have the tendency to always give equal time to both sides of any disagreement.   And this is why a Republican scientist is so rare.

Recent poll data I’ve looked at shows that the American public leans towards Progressive values and the demographics show a shift towards liberalism on many issues.  I’d be curious how this correlates to levels of higher education and general knowledge.  In the last half century, the number of college graduates has increased and so I wonder if that relates to the increase of liberalism.  Also, I wonder if an increase in higher education has led to an increase of general knowledge and specifically political knowledge.  College education has become even more important than it was in the past because there are fewer working class jobs available.  Because of this, college has become more of a career path and so has strayed from it’s original liberal education purpose.  If college was refocused on creating well informed citizens and if more people went to college, would this mean that America would become even more liberal?

News Sources: Viewer Knowledge

The Pew Research Center

What Americans Know: 1989-2007
PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE OF CURRENT AFFAIRS LITTLE CHANGED BY NEWS
AND INFORMATION REVOLUTIONS

I only glanced at this article on poll data, but it is quite interesting.  The Daily Show and the The Colbert Report are at the top ranking of informed viewers (along with the major newspaper websites).  The Fox News Channel is at the very bottom keeping company with the Network morning shows, but the O’Reilly factor is above average.  O’Reilly Factor looks like a haven for intelligent people on Fox News and is at the same level as NPR.

What interests me most is that this justifies a recent comment I made.  I was explaining my criticisms of Glenn Beck’s criticisms about the mainstream media he is a part of.  I said that Comedy Central represents me more than all of the tv news combined.  As I’m a proponent of being well informed, I would seem to be correct in my faith in Colbert and Stewart.

One criticism of this poll is that it seems to be testing people on factoids rather than on comprehension and insight. Being informed about factoids doesn’t mean someone is able to think critically about the issues and come to an objective conclusion.  For example, NPR has a format where they spend lengthy periods of time doing in-depth interviews about specific issues.  Also, NPR spends a lot of time on human interest stories which does inform the listener about other perspectives which I think is important, but this kind of knowledge wasn’t in the poll.  Plus, NPR is more including a mix with entertainment and fiction author interviews.  That isn’t exactly comparable to the O’Reilly factor.

Also, I want to know where the viewers were informed.  For example, viewers of The Daily Show are highly informed and they get a fair amount of info from the show, but I imagine they tend to be a demographic that seeks many other sources of news.  There is a difference between a viewer who actively seeks out knowledge to inform themselves and the viewer who more passively absorbs all of their info from a more limited number of sources.  The ability to spit back factoids does not intelligence make.

I want to know how the different viewers interpret the data.  A viewer may be well-informed, but either repeats the interpretation of the news reporter/commenter or else has a highly biased understanding.  Which set of viewers had the widest understanding by considering multiple perspectives?  Which set of viewers was best at manipulating the data to rationalize their preconceived beliefs?

 

 

Knowledge and Wisdom in the Information Age

The Glass Bead Game from the Red Star Cafe blog

I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbol led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with truly a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang holiness is forever being created.

Joseph Knecht, Master of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

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It’s been a long time since I read this book by Hesse, but I remember enjoying it.  I read a lot of Hesse in highschool and was highly impressed at the time.  This quote reminds me of a passage from Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis.  PKD was describing a mystical interaction with divine information.  Every thought, every question, every possibility led to infinity.  There was no final conclusion.  To read the this PKD passage, see my blog post PKD on God as Infinity.

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The Glass Bead Game Redux from the Red Star Cafe blog

Readers of blogs like this are witnessing a shift of intellectual authority from the traditional “expert” to the broader public. This is nowhere more tellingly illustrated than by Wikipedia, which has roughly 300,000 volunteer contributors every month.

What makes the mobilization of “crowd wisdom” intellectually powerful is that the technology of the Web makes it so easy for even amateurs to access a growing fraction of the body of human knowledge. The value of traditional expert authority is itself being diluted by the new incentive structure created by information technology that militates against what is deep and nuanced in favour of what is fast and stripped-down.

The result is the growing disintermediation of experts and gatekeepers of virtually all kinds. The irony is that experts have been the source of most of the nuggets of knowledge that the crowd now draws upon – for example, news and political bloggers depend heavily on a relatively small number of sources of professional journalism, just as many Wikipedia articles assimilate prior scholarship. The system works because it is able to mine intellectual capital. This suggests that today’s cult of the amateur will ultimately be self-limiting and will require continuous fresh infusions of more traditional forms of expert knowledge.

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I would point out that the intelligence of the internet age isn’t merely parasitic, but rather is a levelling of the playing field.  Instead of being passive receivers, people now interact with their media.

Two examples.

First, news media follows closely twitter and the blogosphere to catch new trends and breaking news.  Reporters aren’t usually the first people to be on a scene and with cellphones firsthand reporting can potentially come from anyone.

Second, bloggers often are very dedicated researchers who aren’t limited by the financial obligations of working for a media company.  Many bloggers are highly educated and trained in various fields.  Even if they don’t have the title of expert, they may act in that capacity.  Bloggers often do original analysis and uncover new data, and mainstream reporters do sometimes cite bloggers.  Bloggers don’t often get much respectability, but neither did the early muckrakers who were the earliest investigative reporters.

By being outside of the mainstream, bloggers have a different perspective.  Sometimes bloggers are reporting on issues and events that get almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media.

The value of traditional expert authority isn’t being diluted, but it is being challenged.  I would, however, argue that this strengthens expert authority by holding it to an even higher standard.

Objective analysis shows that Wikipedia articles on science and history are as reliable as encyclopedias (I would argue that they may be more reliable in some ways as they’re constantly being updated).  Also, Wikipedia cites many external sources that often are directly linked and so one can judge for themselves rather than solely relying on an expert.  In the long run, Wikipedia will on average become more reliable than a traditional printed encyclopedia.  Furthermore, Wikipedia has stringent standards and so acts as a training ground for any person to learn how to determine the validity of information.

So, the web doesn’t result in “the growing disintermediation of experts and gatekeepers”.  Rather, it increases mediation and creates better methods of gatekeeping.  Traditional experts still play a part, but they no longer dominate the discussion.

The above blog linked to an article by Peter Nicholson.  The following blog is a response to that article.  The opinion of stated below resonates with my own sense of this emerging information age.

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Reducing Life to a Formula from the Ooops…I’m still here blog

What has led me to rant about this pet peeve of mine,  is Peter Nicholson’s, Globe and Mail article, “Information – rich and attention – poor” (09-09-12).  Blaming the digital age he declares,

“In becoming information rich, we have become attention poor… [E]conomics teaches that the counterpart of every new abundance is a new scarcity – in this case the scarcity of human time and attention.”

[...]There is nothing wrong with the abundance of information created by digital technology.  Yes, I realise some of it is slim, but that’s okay, because there are ways of accessing deeper knowledge as well.  I personally have not experienced an attention deficit as a result of the “knowledge abundance”.  What I have experienced is a thrill at being able to access so much information in such a short time.  I do not fear what Nicholson refers to as the “24-hour knowledge cycle”, the ability to access news 24/7.  I relish in it.

                    Nicholson writes about the changing market for knowledge.  He states:

“When the effective shelf life of a document (or any information product) shrinks, fewer resources will be invested in its creation.  This is because the period during which the product is likely to be read or referred to is too short to repay a large allocation of scarce time and skill in its production.  As a result the ‘market’ for depth is narrowing.”

When you look at what is happening in the publishing world you have to agree with the first part of his comment, that because a “news product” has a short life it’s not financially feasible to invest heavily in it.  However, I disagree with his conclusion, that the result is  that the market for depth is narrowing.  Hey,  I’m part of the market and I’m not narrowing, nor are my eleven year old students who’s thirst for knowledge is unquenchable.  The desire for “depth” is not diminished by the abundance of knowledge.  In fact, it is enriched by it.

Intelligence & Curiosity

I want to speak about intellectual ability.  Some of it’s inborn intelligence and some of it’s learned habits such as memory tricks or reading comprehension.  However, those aspects aren’t necessarily the most central or most important.  Without intellectual curiosity and a desire to learn, all the ability in the world is useless.

In online discussions, I’m surprised how often someone asks a question when a five second websearch would’ve given them an answer.  So much time gets spent on explaining (sometimes very basic ideas and facts) to people who lack any motivation to learn.

I’m surprised how often people don’t read a link when I post it explaining what it is and why it’s relevant.  I’ve even cited a link as a basis of an argument and the argument itself was straight from the article, but the other person disagrees with me demonstrating they didn’t even read the article.  If I’m citing an article by an expert or which quotes an expert, then any disagreement anyone has should be with the expert or the article.  But do they quote another expert or link another article?  No.  They just disagree with some magical power of intuition.  They just know your wrong.

It’s a rare person who goes to the effort of actually backing up their opinions with logic and facts.  And I really hate it when people pull the ‘experience’ card.  Someone may be a mother but it doesn’t mean they understand every mother.  Certainly, a survey or scientific research of thousands of people has at least equal or greater worth than the anecdotal experience of one person.  Another stupid tactic is when someone argues, for example, that since you take a liberal position that therefore you don’t know what it’s like to be fighting on the frontline… as if all soldiers are conservatives.

Then there are the nitpickers who either are trolls or simply lack inter-personal skills.  There comments can seem stupid as the person never adds anything of intelligence, but the person might actually have some hidden intelligence.  It really annoys me when I sense or suspect they’re intelligent because I keep waiting for an intelligent response which never comes.  What is the point of having intelligence if you don’t like using it?  I’d rather deal with a well-intentioned idiot than a halfway intelligent troll… a little bit of intelligence can be a dangerous thing.

The most typical variety of intellectually challenged debater is the person who simply repeats the same statement or belief or supposed fact.  They’ll rarely back up what they say with any cited source and if they offer a link it’s probably a ranting blog, a conspiracy website, apologetics or whatever.  If this person is also a nitpicker, they can be extremely annoying because they’ll demand that you cite sources for every minor statement.  This kind of person if they’re subtle enough (as some intelligent apologists are), they can lead you on for hours.  They make you think they actually care about the discussion, but they just want to make you run around.  They already have their mind made up before you wrote your first word.

It’s not that most people are stupid, but most definitely the average person tends to under-utilize their intelligence to an extreme degree.  What is lacking is curiosity.  How sad! 

I realize people are busy with more “important” things, but I still think it’s sad.