Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ So the Public is Stupid and Ill-Informed

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So the Public is Stupid and Ill-Informed | 33 comments (33 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: So the Public is Stupid and Ill-Informed (4.00 / 7)

Well said.

However, when it is in the interest of political factions to keep the public ignorant and ill-informed, the system breaks.

Liberal Democracy requires Enlightened values, first among them a commitment to quality universal education for the populace. I don't see a lot of commitment to that from our politicians, who have been infected by business-speak.

They say the best way to learn something is to teach it. No allowance is made for the damage done to students.

by Migeru on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 02:57:24 AM EST

Re: So the Public is Stupid and Ill-Informed (none / 0)

Add in the fact that big money can manipulate the media (and thus elections) to ensure that candidates of either party do their bidding and the entire system becomes a farce. The seeds of this were planted at the very beginnings of the republic, if you look at the conflicting worldviews of Jefferson versus Hamilton, and whose worldview is most in evidence in the America of today.

A poorly educated electorate and centralization of wealth and power are mutually-reinforcing trends which spiral down into the pit of autocracy - which in the end destroys the wealthy and powerful as surely as the "unwashed masses."

In the broadest scheme of things, this may be because technological innovation (in effect, less expensive energy), another fruit of education, provides the broadly-distributed wealth that acts as a counterforce to this trend towards consolidation of power. Declining education strangles the goose that lays the golden egg both in terms of a population educated to rule itself wisely and in terms of a citizenry with the disposable income to be unswayed by empty promises of cheap fixes with quick payoffs but long-term problems. Expanded oil drilling is perhaps the best example currently, but the concept applies to examples from the Roman "bread and circuses" to the American "a chicken in every pot" (The latter phrase, commonly attributed to Hoover's 1928 campaign, actually goes back to 17th century France, when King Henry IV reputedly wished that each of his peasants would enjoy "a chicken in his pot every Sunday.")

It may be that a republic is ultimately not sustainable without ever greater resource utilization, although in the near term greater energy efficiency can buy us some time to develop spaceflight into a technology which is capable of taking us over the next hurdle. (Gulp: I'm starting to sound like Robert Heinlein!)

Ecological collapse is already happening. Your resentment of the word doesn't change the fact that it is occurring.

by Knoxville Progressive (green_planet_2000 (at) yahoo (dot) com) on Fri Jul 25th, 2008 at 10:00:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

So the Public is Stupid and Ill-Informed | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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