The trucks have left Ottawa, only to take up residence in VanKleek Hill and Arnprior. But the problem they represent has not been solved. Andrew Coyne writes that our real enemy is disinformation:
The blockades that paralyzed Ottawa and various border points have been removed, at least for now. But the blockades are merely the symptom. The disease is disinformation.
We are discovering for ourselves what until now we had observed at secondhand: large numbers of our fellow citizens can be made to believe almost anything. This is a challenge to our democracy orders of magnitude greater than the disruptive possibilities of a few strategically placed trucks.
It is a challenge, in part, because we are so reluctant to consider it. If so many people are so upset about something, we think, surely there must be some basis to it. There are two sides to every question, we are taught, and by and large this is a good rule to follow. Too many people nowadays are too ready to declare too many debates “closed.”
The internet -- which was supposed to democratize the world -- has become a monstrous vacuum cleaner that sweeps up garbage and redistributes it with the speed of light:
We should not . . . assume any belief is worth discussing, simply because lots of people believe it. There are not two sides to whether the Earth is flat, or whether Donald Trump won the 2020 election. And yet millions of people believe both.
Opposition to vaccine mandates was not by any means the only idea behind the occupation, or the strangest. Protest leaders appear to sincerely believe, inter alia, that vaccines contain RFID chips, that the governor-general can rule by decree, and that Canada has a First Amendment. This is a movement in opposition not merely to vaccines, but to science, authority, expertise of all kinds: in a word, knowledge.
What is at work here is not a series of individual deficiencies, but a collective failure of socialization. These are people who appear to have detached themselves not only from the behavioural norms of civil society, but from the whole transmission chain by which knowledge is spread among the population.
Knowledge, that is, is a social process. We form our beliefs about the world, not in isolation, but with the help of those around us. We learn from people with more knowledge, experience and judgment than we have, and through them absorb the accumulated wisdom of society. We have to. We cannot individually relitigate every elementary fact of human knowledge every day.
When a significant proportion of us go to war against knowledge, we create a hell of our own making:
Previous generations of class warriors wanted to smash capital, first physical then financial. But in an age in which capital resides in knowledge, the objective must be to smash knowledge itself, together with its repositories – the universities, the courts, the media. All are not merely fallible but hostile, enemies of the people, filled with lies – which is to say, with facts they refuse to believe.
In the end, knowledge can save us. It's ignorance that will damn us.
Image: Quotefancy
10 comments:
I have a degree of sympathy for the people who believe that Biden stole the US presidency and that the Covid vaccines contain tracking chips. These people are generally not that bright and they're being manipulated by sophisticated propaganda developed and targeted by bad actors. With the Cambridge Analytica scandal we caught a glimpse of how this is done, but the curtain concealing the sausage factory soon closed again.
I have much less sympathy for media pundits who bemoan that "large numbers of our fellow citizens can be made to believe almost anything," while completely failing to address the important questions: how is this being done, by whom, for what purpose, how much money is changing hands, and so on. It's only by answering those questions that we can put a stop to the flood of disinformation.
Cap
"There are not two sides "
The endless two-side-ism of the dominant media creates fertile ground for the online conspiracies to grow.
They all do it and the CBC is amongst the worst of the bunch and more dangerous cause 'it is left wing eh?"
There are huge profits to be made in the manufacture and distribution of disinformation, Cap. The Murdoch family is a case in point. Until something is done about the profit motive, not much will change.
It's important that our media put truth over profit, PoV. Right now, it's the other way around.
As someone who does not subscribe to any form of 'social media' (unless you count private email as such) I am hardy objective about such communications but I really wonder if it is an asset or a curse, Owen. The speed with which it can spread both valid information and total nonsense with equal ease has much to do with giving the trouble makers in our society a disproportionate sway over the more gullible citizens. Knowledge is only good if from a reliable source but its increasingly hard to tell such from fabricated spin.
I have always advocated three sides ... yours, mine and the truth.
tho I can do two ... right and wrong
The either believe as I believe or you are a demon, Satan, zombie, government mind controlled dummy crowd i avoid now.
Actually any "person of faith" who in the end need no proof
just end with "trust and faith " in imaginary beings
tho interesting are not worth engaging.
It comes down to having good crap detecters, Rural. And, as recent events prove, there are lots of us who don't possess them -- or even know what they are.
Even Faith should be backed up with evidence, lungta.
Coyne has been on fire the last year or so and his writing is approaching Andrew Nikiforuk quality. He is spot on that the real enemy is misinformation. As a country we have vastly underestimated its impact- what just happened in Ottawa and at the borders was really f'ing serious and brought the nation to its knees. It was anything but a protest and as Coyne points out, a culmination of disinformation. To see its impact, try having a conversation with someone immersed in the Covid anti-vax and freedom movement. When you point out fact, you get a "ya-but" response which means they're having nothing with the truth. Anyone with a Facebook account can easily find one of these people and it will shock your pants off when you discover who they are- you'll go, no, not them are you serious? The recent emergencies act pushed this back, temporarily, but the movement is so embedded now, only the vast majority of sensible people speaking up louder will push it back to the fringe where it belongs. All eyes now should be on the Con party to see where they go with selecting its next leader, do they appeal to the majority or cater to the fringe. I suspect the latter. BC Waterboy
If they choose Poilievre, there will be no doubt where they stand, waterboy.
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