If you read nothing else this month, please get a copy of the 11/29/10 edition of "The Nation"

[Atticus]

and read Benjamin R. Barber's EXCELLENT two page article entitled "America's Knowledge Deficit".

This explains, very succinctly, why people like Palin and Beck are not just tolerated, but are actually revered by too many of our neighbors.

[Newsjock]

1. Or if you're cheap

... You can read it here at the author's website:
http://www.benjaminbarber.com/AmericasKnowledgeDeficit_TheNation_11_29.PDF

[Atticus]

2. Thanks. nt

[Atticus]

3. Dupe. Deleted by poster.

[RKP5637]

11. Thanks for having posted this link! n/t

[Radical Activist]

19. Being told to go buy a magazine for an article sounds so quaint.

Like being told to go to the well and fetch a pail of water. It's from another time.

[hlthe2b]

4. With all due respect, I know the problem....

all too acutely. What I don't know is what we can do about it, which is not addressed here.

[Atticus]

7. I think many of us are capable of simply stopping the conversation any time

we find that mere opinion is being treated as knowledge or fact. Refuse to even pretend that the speaker's words are worthy of respect.

Of course, we have to be able to explain the difference between mere belief and facts susceptible of either corroboration or falsification.

And, if the speaker goes ballistic, as many of them will, I suggest we smile very condescendingly and say something like: "I certainly understand your discomfort with your position". And, then either leave or start some other conversation with others present: "I think Bush should get a fair trial. How about you?"

[RKP5637]

10. What I find so frustrating and disturbing is many of these individuals are

proud of their ignorance as if a badge of honor. I've always been one to certainly admit I don't know something, in fact a lot of things, but I've always been more than willing to learn from a creditable source. Often their minds are completely blocked to new information that might deviate from their hard core beliefs.

IMO this is a post-Reagan phenomena that seems to be growing and growing ... If this continues we as a nation are going nowhere in the 21st century.

[patrice]

9. Short of being able to sit down together and actually talk about this peacefully, the only thing I

can think of is to continue to try to engage them on the internet and everyone on our side TRY to focus on what makes knowledge knowledge. Even if you never convince whomever you are struggling with in whatever thread or forum, at least the other posters and those reading or otherwise lurking there will see what the issues are in comparison between someone debating from a rational empirical perspective compared to someone who is arguing pure opinion.

[KoKo]

14. Agree... Many of us KNOW THE PROBLEM...it's not offering a Solution...and

so it becomes "preaching to the choir" about what's wrong...but doesn't give actions. Wonky.

[Mimosa]

5. Entusiastic K&R. n/t

[RagAss]

6. I covered this topic in my book..."The Rise of the American Cretin".

[patrice]

8. Absolutely true. Everywhere I went on the internet in the last election cycle, I was

completely stumped by the fact that ALL of the opposition seemed to think that just saying something makes it so and that all you need is to have more people on your side saying the same thing and that's what makes one point of view more true than another. They NEVER brought ANY empirical evidence to any discussion that I was ever in and they NEVER commented on any specific piece of empirical data that anyone else brought to the discussion.

Barber is completely correct. It's not just that we disagree; it's that we are talking to people who have no concept, beyond the most immediate experiences, of what makes knowledge what it is. To them, it's nothing more than a matter of having more people on their side saying the same thing and that is what makes whatever it is right and true. THAT'S it!

[treestar]

12. I read that too. It's very good.

[phasma ex machina]

13. The deep dark secret of the ideology of scientism is that it is all based on a very flimsy

foundation: the assertion that statements about reality must be intersubjectively validatable though sense experience.

When you look at that worldview, you might ask the same question that it asks of every other assertion: what data could validate or verify its truth. It quickly becomes apparent that there is no such data, nor could there be. The criterion of truth being asserted by contemporary descendants of the empiricists turns out to be without foundation according to its own criterion of truth.

There is no verifiable data that can validate the statement that all truth must rest on verifiable data, just as there is none to validate the notion that ethical judgements should be held in a mutually tolerant way. In other words, scientism itself is another faith, its own foundation just as tenuous or just as solid as any other spiritual or religious tradition. - Spirit Matters

[patrice]

18. horseshit.

[Kat45]

15. This statement from the article is so true--and scary.

"Yet what has happened to American democracy is that we have substituted opinion and prejudice for science and reason—or, worse still, no longer recognize the difference between them."

[Historic NY]

16. The consequences of the dumbing down of America.....

people believe half truths, gossip and stuff promoted as Gospel on the internet over clear facts. They think Beck is a scholar and Palin is a leader and Fox News is real news. Amazing and all in ten years or less.
People read less, mostly skip newspapers and will believe most anything that comes from Facebook or other social networks. Were doomed.

[bettyellen]

17. the thing is they know theres a lot of bullshit on Fox, so they just dismiss

all new sources as bullshit.

[Hawkowl]

20. America is doomed

The country is finished. The glorification of idiocy and ignorance will be the end of the nation. It will be traumatic but inevitable.