The Age of Reason is Dead!
It was murdered. There are many suspects in this heinous crime; greed, apathy, commercialization, special interests etc., but in this particular case I’m a firm believer that each of the above parties played a role. Yes, that’s right I’m liberal and I’m espousing a conspiracy theory! (lol) Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about the effects of reason’s death on America.
Our forefathers, who founded America, did so working under the premise that an informed populace would be able to make good decisions when choosing their representatives, and would further be able to then monitor their representatives and be kept appraised of their actions. The key to our forefathers assumptions, when setting up America’s political system, was that the populace would be properly informed therefore allowing for reasoned, rationale decisions. They could not possibly have foreseen however, the effects our modern day technology like radio and tv would have on the way America’s citizens receive information, much less the amount and quality of the information. We currently live in the so called, “Information Age”, where vast quantities of data are available to every American at the push of a button or the click of a mouse. This would seem to be a good thing, and perhaps it would be if the information we we’re receiving was not being filtered through the sieves of first; a few, wealthy individuals who own almost all of the tv and radio stations and second the fairly new idea that news bureaus don’t exist simply to inform the people, they have to be entertaining and above all profitable. Today’s television stations are especially guilty of treating their news programs to this, ratings and profit above all else mentality. Is it any wonder then why we have hours upon hours of lurid, Anna Nicole Smith type of coverage and very little hard news? I’ll be the first to admit that some of this drivel, disguised as news, is entertaining, but the real question is, is it keeping the American populace, the cornerstone of our democracy informed enough to use reason when making important decisions, or is it just making us crave cheeseburgers and more sensationalism?
The are many other aspects to what has killed reason in this country, but in the interest of keeping this post shorter than, “War and Peace”, I will close for now and write more on the subject in a second part/post. Before closing though, I do want to give credit and kudos to the newest Al Gore book, “The Assault on Reason”, which I am currently reading and which voices many similar points in a much clearer way. I would highly recommend it to one and all, as it is not a politically partisan work.
Our forefathers, who founded America, did so working under the premise that an informed populace would be able to make good decisions when choosing their representatives, and would further be able to then monitor their representatives and be kept appraised of their actions. The key to our forefathers assumptions, when setting up America’s political system, was that the populace would be properly informed therefore allowing for reasoned, rationale decisions. They could not possibly have foreseen however, the effects our modern day technology like radio and tv would have on the way America’s citizens receive information, much less the amount and quality of the information. We currently live in the so called, “Information Age”, where vast quantities of data are available to every American at the push of a button or the click of a mouse. This would seem to be a good thing, and perhaps it would be if the information we we’re receiving was not being filtered through the sieves of first; a few, wealthy individuals who own almost all of the tv and radio stations and second the fairly new idea that news bureaus don’t exist simply to inform the people, they have to be entertaining and above all profitable. Today’s television stations are especially guilty of treating their news programs to this, ratings and profit above all else mentality. Is it any wonder then why we have hours upon hours of lurid, Anna Nicole Smith type of coverage and very little hard news? I’ll be the first to admit that some of this drivel, disguised as news, is entertaining, but the real question is, is it keeping the American populace, the cornerstone of our democracy informed enough to use reason when making important decisions, or is it just making us crave cheeseburgers and more sensationalism?
The are many other aspects to what has killed reason in this country, but in the interest of keeping this post shorter than, “War and Peace”, I will close for now and write more on the subject in a second part/post. Before closing though, I do want to give credit and kudos to the newest Al Gore book, “The Assault on Reason”, which I am currently reading and which voices many similar points in a much clearer way. I would highly recommend it to one and all, as it is not a politically partisan work.
posted by Leo at 3:59 PM
2 Comments:
I've got to read that, too.
Damn, I wish he'd run. Looking forward to part 2 of your post.
Candace, so far it has been a good read. I don't know if Gore has the charm to ever be elected President, but he certainly has the brains. He is one seriously smart guy. Thanks for much for the comment.
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