The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    cmaukonen's picture

    Technology...miraculous, convenient and boring.

    By cmaukonen on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 6:34pm |

    Yes boring....breath-takingly so. You really do not have to do anything to use it. You do not have to know anything to use it.  Your computer, iPod, car, television, radio/stereo, microwave, cell phone...you name it. You turn it on and it works and probably will for a very long time. After which you replace it. As the sticker says on the back, No user serviceable parts inside. Nearly everything does what it's supposed to do nearly flawlessly.  Digital audio and video that requires little or not adjustment except for the volume and there are even units that will automatically adjust that depending on the amount of background noise.

    Not like when vacuum tubes ruled the roost. When people had to know a little about how things worked. To replace the tubes in their TV or stereo or radio. To keep the buggy on the road.  Stuff that could be, and quite often was, modified by the technically inclined and sometimes dis-inclined. Amateur electronics enthusiasts.  Most of the electronics today cannot be repaired or modified easily if at all. The parts and microchips are proprietary and what they do and how they do it are some industrial secret.   You don't even need to know how to cook anymore. Just grab a frozen dinner of some sort and put it in the microwave and zap - dinner. (Or lunch or breakfast) .   In days of yore people had more problem solving skills because they had to. Now you would be hard pressed to repair anything even if you had the skill and desire.

    In fact most people outside of their chosen area of expertise, do not know how to do much. And here is the clincher - you do not even need to know what is going on in the world to live a fairly reasonable life. You can be a Specialist surgeon and not know much outside of that and get along just fine. So now with thousands of satellite/cable stations to choose from, DVDs and internet videos, you don't even have to watch the news if you do not wish to.

    Back before all this, when there were usually three network stations in most markets, you eiter watched the news or nothing.   All three carried the news at the same time or nearly so. And ran for the same amount of time.  They had no competition except themselves.  Now the news has competition, not just with other news but with entertainment programming so the news has to be more entertainment than news.  Radio staions always had the news at least once an hour.

    So after reading David Sirota's latest column it all kind of makes sense.

    What could cause this intensifying politics of free-market fundamentalism at the very historical moment that proves the failure of such an ideology? Two new academic studies suggest all roads lead to ignorance.

    The first, by Harvard's Michael Norton and Duke's Dan Ariely, finds that Americans grossly underestimate how much inequality our economy produces. Among the survey respondents, the vast majority said they believe the richest 20 percent own 59 percent of the wealth, when, in fact, that quintile owns 84 percent of the wealth. In other words, in spite of the data, many believe our system produces the moderate equality we desire, which means many see efforts to better spread wealth as a confiscatory overreach.

    That, however, is not the full story of 2010. Because this now-ascendant economic view relies on misperceptions about inequality, we are still left to wonder: What accounts for those misperceptions?

    Some of it undoubtedly stems from debt's illusions. In a country of overused MasterCards, we are surrounded by luxury cars, McMansions and flat-screen TVs purchased on credit. Such ubiquitous bling feigns a widespread prosperity that doesn't really exist.

    Some of it is also televisual iconography. In the media's fun-house mirror we see a news world populated exclusively by six- and seven-figure salaried journalists -- as if that wealth is a societal norm. Meanwhile, on the entertainment side, our beloved sitcom families trick us into thinking our nation is less stratified than it is: We were led to believe the super-rich Huxtables epitomized the middle class just like we are now asked to regard "Modern Family's" affluence in the same way.

    But, as insidious as artificial aesthetics are, the most powerful factor in our economic illiteracy is found in the other new academic report -- the one examining our innate denial reflex.

    As Northwestern University's David Gal and Derek Rucker recently documented in a paper titled "When in Doubt, Shout!," many Americans respond to convention-challenging facts not by reevaluating their worldview. Shaken by an assault on their assumptions, many become more adamant in defense of wrongheaded ideas.

    You see people are ignorant of the world, the economy and this country out of choice. Why ? Because they no longer have any real reason not to be. It is no longer necessary to be knowledgeable or enlightened to live a perfectly comfortable life here.  They do know know what is really going on because they no longer have to.  The Doctors and lawyers and businessmen are becoming highly trained versions of the assembly line worker where thought and reason are no longer a major requirement to perform their tasks.  We are becoming less and less able to think and reason because we no longer have to in our every day lives. So not knowing and understanding what is really going on is not terribly surprising. It is very disconcerting though.

    Comments

    An interesting idea, but the premise that specialized societies tend to be more ignorant is pretty bizarre. Myths and misperceptions are rampant in the less-specialized developing world. And where's the evidence the U.S. is any more ignorant than it used to be? As for the "denial reflex," that's basic human psychology. See confirmation bias.

    In other words, people are ignorant and closeminded. Welcome to humanity.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 7:46pm

    I think it is more so than in the past Genghis.  I do remember when you could have a conversation with someone on the topics of the day that was reasonably intelligent and they were aware of what was going on in the world, the country and locally. Now...not so much. I do believe that we here in this country at least are becoming victims of our own success. Our technology is not making us stupid, it is allowing us to become stupid.


    by cmaukonen on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 7:52pm

    We don't have to be stupid. We choose to become stupid.

    So much information at our fingertips

    How much money did x congressman take from exxon in the last two years. Most of it is available.

    But how this pc works....not a clue.

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 8:08pm

    Two years ago I was discussing Caroline Kennedy with a former coworker of mine, around the time that Caroline was recruited to help Obama, and my friend mentioned an interview of Maria Schriver that she'd seen.  My coworker said that, as a child, Maria (and all of her cousins) were required to discuss at least three daily current events every evening at the dinner table.  Not only just bring them up, per se, but form an opinion on each item and be ready to debate their opinion with their parents throughout the course of the meal.

    My friend said "Every family should do that."  While it sounds a bit extreme, I can't help but agree. 


    by LisB on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 8:14pm

    I could not agree more Lis. Great idea.


    by cmaukonen on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 8:16pm

    Tried to edit my comment, just now, but Dag won't let me.  I meant to say that Maria, AS A CHILD, was required....

    Oh well.  You knew what I meant.

     


    by LisB on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 8:18pm

    Fixed, and good morning.


    by Donal on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 8:07am

    I remember when my dad would take tubes out of the TV and we would bring them to the hardware store to test them, and buy a new one if needed, and fix the TV ourselves!  Can you imagine anyone doing that today?  (I know, back in the olden days, TVs were simpler ...)  But while things have gotten more complicated, technology has gotten simpler to use.  Of course, Apple has challenged that notion by not including instruction manuals with their iPods just to drive the non-Apple people crazy. But never mind that.

    But part of the ignorance is not stupidity or the lack of knowledge. Some of it is determined, purposeful not-knowing, Creationists, for example, don't want knowledge threatening their belief system. And then there's that large segment of the Repubs that consistently mock the educated and the 'elite'.  I think they can only get away with that in a society in which an education isn't necessary, and therefore, is un-appreciated.  Eh, but what do I know?


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 10/29/2010 - 11:34pm

    More than most Mr. Smith...more than most.


    by cmaukonen on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 12:10am

    “The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance”

    Thomas Jefferson


    by chucktrotter on Sat, 10/30/2010 - 2:59pm