A (short) rant on misinformation & miseducation--

[Jackpine Radical]

Why is there so much acceptance of obvious falsehoods in our culture? I think it's basically a result of two circumstances that have collided in a terribly unfortunate way. The first of these circumstances is the gutting of higher education. The second is the epidemic proliferation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

First, about education:

I know a guy who is really quite bright, but listens constantly to Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. His post-high school education consisted of various police academies. He has strong (conventionally teabaggy) opinions about everything, from global warming to Obama the socialist. He told me he has never (at least in adult life) read a book, but he spends several hours a day reading newspapers online. From what he sends me, I know they aren't all fascist rages. If he tries to read "liberal propaganda," he will get a paragraph or 2 into it until something sets off his rage (a positive comment about Al Gore would suffice), and then he will throw it aside.

In thinking about him and many like him, I have come to believe that his education is lacking in one primary area, namely, the skill of evaluating information. This is the kind of skill you are supposed to acquire in higher education (assuming your "higher education" didn't occur at Regent or Bob Jones University). Unfortunately, the kind of standardized testing-driven schooling that occurs under NCLB doesn't prepare one to be a discerning consumer in the information marketplace, and there has been a general vitiating of the broad-gauge learning we once called "the humanities" in our colleges and universities. This is especially true in the new, for-profit academies, where the whole focus is on preparing you to fit into a niche in the Corporate State machine.

The result is that people emerge from our institutions of "higher learning" with a set of job skills and no ability to evaluate the quality of (mis-/dis-/non-) information that they encounter. This leads them to rely upon authorities like Limbaugh for the latest findings on global warming and upon Glenn Beck for their in-depth knowledge of social theory and political science.

Second, Dunning-Kruger. I will let Wikipedia speak for me:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others"

The net result of the confluence of these two effects is that we as a nation are overwhelmed by masses of ignorant citizens brimming with confidence in the accuracy of the simple-minded, misbegotten notions fed to them by the Chatterati, and acting on their delusional constructions of reality.

It took a great deal of despicably motivated social engineering to get us to this point, and I'm not quite sure how to begin getting us out, especially given that our own party has largely bought into misguided frames concerning the problems facing the nation and are enthusiastically pushing anti-intellectual educational policies upon our youth.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Jackpine, You are so correct. It is a weird and sad propaganda effect.

[LWolf]

2. I have to agree.

Here's a story from my classroom, a couple of years ago:

It was an 8th grade humanities class; my state has an 8th grade standard dealing with recognizing propaganda. I brought up the topic, and said that it was our job to evaluate information, not based on our emotions, on our belief systems, or on what anyone else said, but using fact and reason. I said that there was plenty of propaganda in our reading, and everywhere in our media for us to analyze.

One of my students said, "What do you mean, in the media?" I said talk television and talk radio had plenty of examples. This student stood up and yelled at me: "Are you saying that Glen Beck is lying? Because I'm hear to tell you that we listen to him all the time, and what he says is THE TRUTH." I noted that I hadn't referred to Glen Beck, that I didn't appreciate her outburst, and that I'd be happy to speak to her privately.

The next morning, her mother was in the office with the principal, ripping me a new one for criticizing their family values and suggesting that her daughter question what she'd been taught at home.

Next, my principal met with me and told me:

1. No more discussion of propaganda in the classroom, state standard or not.

2. The mother would be observing my classroom every day until she was satisfied that I wasn't indoctrinating children, or she got some evidence to take to the school board.

I don't wonder why obvious falsehoods are accepted as conventional wisdom in our culture.

[Odin2005]

11. That sounds more like schools avoiding "controversy" out of fear of those kind of parents.

Teachers are no longer allowed to teach facts anymore because we live in a "post-modern" world where there are no "objective facts" only "opinions" and "perspectives". And thus curricula is dumbed down into garbage out of fear of "offending" anyone's "opinions".

[LWolf]

13. It happens.

Even in my classroom, obviously.

I don't get to ignore direct orders from my boss.

None of us do.

Your point about our "post-modern" world is valid, and is a direct factor in the current effort to obliterate public education and privatize it all. Turning teachers into sales clerks and privatizing the control of curriculum allows generations to be educated by opinion.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. I'm glad I was on our school's debate team

Learned how to evaluate and defend both sides of any issue. Understanding how to evaluate evidence objectively is a vital skill. This does not mean that everyone who participates is going to become progressive. Carl Rove and Newt Gingrich were debaters, and used some of the skills to do great harm. But is everyone knew how to separate BS from reason, these sociopaths would have nothing to show for it. You have to be able to care about what happens to people.

In general, I've found that conservatives are not just bad at debate, they have an inflated view of their debating skills. It's not just that they rely on easily debunked misinformation, they have no idea how to argue persuasively. For them, school yard taunts about "Marxism" is a valid rebuttle, but citing actual statistics is...well... MARXIST!

Also,
I had a rather disturbing experience this week - I have been working with two very bright and enthusiastic young teachers this summer. Didn't discuss politics since we were focused on our work. But in the last few days I picked up from conversations between them that both of them are complete ditto-heads when it came to anything political. Evolution, unions, climate change, taxes, everything. They are not by any means stupid, but badly mal-informed and lock-step with the prevailing political attitudes of their churches and the conservative community we live in.

[EFerrari]

4. The best lack all conviction / while the worst are full of passionate intensity

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I'll see that Yeats

and raise you a Shelley:

The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love, and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.


:toast: Skål!

[EFerrari]

6. Dunning-Kruger sounds very Shakespearean.

And if we have to be trapped in one of those things, please let it be one of the redemptive comedies.

lol

[jberryhill]

8. That's fantastic

It would have taken me a whole lot more verbiage to reduce it to that.

I have never understood why people seem to latch on to the guy who can shout "I'm right!" the loudest.

[lunatica]

7. It's all about whether we choose education or indoctination

I remember in the 1960s my generation were quite savvy about the world. They understood that war was bad, that the planet was good, and that unbridled war and human population growth were not good. Few people even know that at one point we actually had zero population growth in this country as a direct result of massive public education through a media that did it's job of talking about what was going on. In the 1960s the most comprehensive civil rights laws came into being, giving all human beings equal rights, at least on paper.

People are no different today. The powers that be are the one's keeping the population ignorant and full of hate. The Boomers weren't special or better. They were just more lucky to live in a time when the corporations were kept in check, at least in this country and the media were varied and independent of corporate masters. No one is mentally or emotionally inferior now. We have a gigantic public enemy called corporations who run things now and that makes all the difference.

[riderinthestorm]

9. I don't know if it's necessarily a choice. We have so many propaganda outlets now vs. real news

choices. It's pretty hard to stay balanced in our current media culture imho. K and R for the OP too by the way...

[Odin2005]

10. I call the latter the "Lake Wobegon Effect"

Everyone thinks they are above average.

[Name removed]

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