I think the current state of wealth inequality and destruction of the middle class says otherwise. We would all be better off if we understood a little more about the world. Sorry I broke your decades long record.
The big caveat there is that knowing things doesn’t change the world. Scads of people are acutely aware of the problems facing society—maybe more than at any time in history. Vanishingly few feel empowered to do anything about it.
I’m not pro-ignorance by any means; education is the silver bullet. But we urgently need to find better ways of translating our spectacular surfeit of knowledge into individually actionable mechanisms of social change.
People understand the problems, particularly the ones that impact them but, most of the time, that understanding is extremely shallow. Knowledge dissemination alone would absolutely have been enough to prevent a second Trump Presidency, and actually a first Biden presidency as well. People make bad choices because they don’t understand them.
I think the same goes for activism as well. I think a lot more people would get involved if they understood the stakes and the effectiveness of organized engagement.
Anyways, this is a humor sub, so I feel a little bad for going all serious, but I’m really bugged by pseudo-zen aloof disengagement rhetoric. (From the above, not from you.)
I think that you’re probably right. I also think I may be projecting a bit, and conflating my country’s apathetic embrace of fascism with my own executive dysfunction. Seems all of a piece. Anyhow, thanks for the words.
Kinda, but kinda not. Case in point, people in the US who believe immigrants cause their poverty. They’re a huge proportion of the population. I bet if most of them knew then Trump would have lost. Further, probably Bernie would have become president. Also most of them would have joined a union. Those things would have dramatically changed the quality of life in America for the better.
I think the current state of wealth inequality and destruction of the middle class says otherwise. We would all be better off if we understood a little more about the world. Sorry I broke your decades long record.
The big caveat there is that knowing things doesn’t change the world. Scads of people are acutely aware of the problems facing society—maybe more than at any time in history. Vanishingly few feel empowered to do anything about it.
I’m not pro-ignorance by any means; education is the silver bullet. But we urgently need to find better ways of translating our spectacular surfeit of knowledge into individually actionable mechanisms of social change.
People understand the problems, particularly the ones that impact them but, most of the time, that understanding is extremely shallow. Knowledge dissemination alone would absolutely have been enough to prevent a second Trump Presidency, and actually a first Biden presidency as well. People make bad choices because they don’t understand them.
I think the same goes for activism as well. I think a lot more people would get involved if they understood the stakes and the effectiveness of organized engagement.
Anyways, this is a humor sub, so I feel a little bad for going all serious, but I’m really bugged by pseudo-zen aloof disengagement rhetoric. (From the above, not from you.)
I think that you’re probably right. I also think I may be projecting a bit, and conflating my country’s apathetic embrace of fascism with my own executive dysfunction. Seems all of a piece. Anyhow, thanks for the words.
Kinda, but kinda not. Case in point, people in the US who believe immigrants cause their poverty. They’re a huge proportion of the population. I bet if most of them knew then Trump would have lost. Further, probably Bernie would have become president. Also most of them would have joined a union. Those things would have dramatically changed the quality of life in America for the better.