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View Full Version : Informed nation thrives in intellectual climate



stephanie
04-03-2008, 12:42 AM
goodness..:poke:

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Ten days ago, I noted the reckless assertion of Barack Obama's former pastor that the U.S. government had deliberately engineered AIDS to kill blacks, but I tried to put it in context by citing a poll showing that 30 percent of African-Americans believe such a plot is at least plausible.

My point was that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is not the far-out fringe figure that many whites assume. But I had a deluge of e-mail from incredulous whites saying, in effect: If 30 percent of blacks believe such bunk, that's a worse scandal than anything Wright said.

It's true that conspiracy theories are a bane of the African-American community. Perhaps partly as a legacy of slavery, Tuskegee and Jim Crow, many blacks are convinced that crack cocaine was a government plot to harm African-Americans and that the levees in New Orleans were deliberately opened to destroy black neighborhoods.

White readers expressed shock (and a hint of smugness) at those delusions, but the sad reality is that conspiracy theories and irrationality aren't a black problem. They are an American problem.

These days, whites may not believe in a government plot to spread AIDS, but they do entertain the equally malevolent theory that the U.S. government had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. An Ohio University poll in 2006 found that 36 percent of Americans believed that federal officials assisted in the attacks on the twin towers or knowingly let them happen so that the United States could go to war in the Middle East.

Then there's this embarrassing fact about the United States in the 21st century: Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution. Depending on how the questions are asked, roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of Americans believe in each.

A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey.

President Bush is also the only Western leader I know of who doesn't believe in evolution, saying "the jury is still out." No word on whether he believes in little green men.

Only one American in 10 understands radiation, and only one in three has an idea of what DNA does. One in five does know that the sun orbits the Earth ... oh, oops.

"America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism," Susan Jacoby argues in a new book, "The Age of American Unreason." She blames a culture of "infotainment," sound bites, fundamentalist religion and ideological rigidity for impairing thoughtful debate about national policies.


read the rest and comments..
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/357300_kristof02.html

diuretic
04-03-2008, 02:09 AM
Hush up, intellectuals, I can't hear the TV. :lol:

diuretic
04-03-2008, 02:11 AM
Well it beats apathy! :laugh2:

stephanie
04-03-2008, 02:12 AM
:lol:

I got a chuckle out of that one when I read it.:coffee:..

mundame
04-03-2008, 09:28 AM
Very interesting article, Stephanie.

I normally attribute the CIA/HIV/cocaine nonsense to low IQs among blacks, the 15-point difference referred to in The Bell Curve.

However, the article points out that a whole lot of whites also believe equally weird conspiracy theories. I can think of some besides that one about Bush carrying out the bombing of New York ----

There is also the idea that Obama is a Muslim, which one of my friends solemnly told me! And that he's a mole for Al Qaeda.


Okay, forget low IQ issues. I think it's probably simply Bush's fault ---- that the people are worried and insecure with all sorts of bad stuff coming at us, and in conditions like that, people go for rumors and conspiracy theories.

Hagbard Celine
04-03-2008, 11:35 AM
100 percent of Conservatives on this site believe in the "vast liberal media conspiracy." None of this should be a shocker to anyone.
Also, I've actually seen a ufo so it's not really an issue of "belief." Not saying it was aliens or anything, but those things definately exist/happen. Just sayin'...:eek:

mundame
04-03-2008, 11:44 AM
Also, I've actually seen a ufo so it's not really an issue of "belief." Not saying it was aliens or anything, but those things definately exist/happen. Just sayin'...:eek:


Yeah, it's best in life to hold disbelief lightly, I find......

Or not at all.

Hobbit
04-03-2008, 12:02 PM
100 percent of Conservatives on this site believe in the "vast liberal media conspiracy." None of this should be a shocker to anyone.
Also, I've actually seen a ufo so it's not really an issue of "belief." Not saying it was aliens or anything, but those things definately exist/happen. Just sayin'...:eek:

There's a difference between a bias and a conspiracy. Bias means they're mostly 'cheering for the same team' (proven by campaign contribution records) and that this affects the way they report stories (probable and supported by studies). Most people here don't believe the TV execs meet in a dark room and talk about how to give Republicans the finger.

Hagbard Celine
04-03-2008, 12:23 PM
There's a difference between a bias and a conspiracy. Bias means they're mostly 'cheering for the same team' (proven by campaign contribution records) and that this affects the way they report stories (probable and supported by studies). Most people here don't believe the TV execs meet in a dark room and talk about how to give Republicans the finger.

Tomato, Tom-ah-to. :rolleyes: You can rationalize your crazy conspiracy theories in whatever way makes you comfortable. It's still a conspiracy theory.

Classact
04-03-2008, 12:40 PM
Tomato, Tom-ah-to. :rolleyes: You can rationalize your crazy conspiracy theories in whatever way makes you comfortable. It's still a conspiracy theory.Logic and reason is only fact in philosophy. If someone has a theory it is a theory, like evolution or left wing press... arguments either support the theory or not like science being able to show evolution in a meaningful way. In the case of left wing press one could do a survey to see how many reporters are left wing in their thinking... this still would not prove there is a left wing press but it does so equally to proving evolution.

For UFO's how can anyone say there is no such thing as a UFO? Everything in our existence is based on perception like a tiny insect looking up at night and seeing a human... we are very small in a very large space... how far is up and where does up end? What is on the other side of the end? We are small and to dismiss something so large is to be ignorant.