Redeye Rant

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you this Redeye Rant.

Generalist Ignorance

I'm going to coin a new phrase.  The phrase is "generalist ignorance."  Generalist ignorance occurs when someone knows nothing, or very little, of a subject yet speaks with authority on that subject or proclaims their uninformed opinion regarding the subject as if it should carry any weight whatsoever.  Example:  Anytime anyone talks about politics.  There is an arc of authority on any given subject that runs exactly parallel with the amount of knowledge a person has on that subject.  In order, they would be:  utter ignorance, generalist ignorance, somewhat informed, informed and expert.  If you derive your information on a subject from the press you have generalist ignorance on the subject with a twist of political bias thrown in distorting whatever nuggets of truth there ever were in the source.  Likewise with the internet - if your source of information on the subject is Wikipedia, you have generalist ignorance on the subject.

So, let me ask - what percentage of the population of the United States knows shit about how government actually works?  Government finance?  Bureaucracy?  Do you know what the CFR is?  What about politics?  Do you know the role of politics in lawmaking?  If you are struggling for an answer to these questions let me help you out - you don't.  But don't feel bad; neither do I and neither do 99.9% of the rest of the citizenry.

There are really two problems with this:  1) those people out there who insist on ignoring their ignorance are going to cause me to drive off a cliff, and 2) an uninformed electorate is the fatal flaw in democracy.  Actually, that's not true - the fatal flaw in democracy is the kayfabe political game that reduces the entire electoral decision into five or six hot-button issues where the only choices are red or blue.  That and the impossibility of the red or blue platform ever coming to fruition.  Or maybe that Democracy only extends as far as the voting booth, which is a loooooong way from where the decisions are actually made - House and Senate committees and bureaucrat offices being among the more important.

The health care reform debate is what set me off on this.  I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten and how many Facebook entries I've read (universally conservative; universally against the plan) that contain utterly ignorant, reactionary and ridiculous shit.  (Obama is going to euthanize old people!  We won't get to choose our doctors anymore!  The plan is going to bankrupt America!  Nancy Pelosi called me Unamerican and a Nazi!)  Well, first of all - no.  Second of all, even if these things were true, where did the people spouting them get this information?  Did they read the actual House Bill?  Did they have tea with their congressman and discuss the finer points of the plan?  Better yet, have they spoken with lobbyists for consumers of health care, insurers or health care providers?  Have they listened to and read any of these things objectively and without unbias to judge the issue on it's actual terms?  I can tell you the answers - NO, NO and FUCK NO.

People are just blindly, knee-jerkingly creating dissension and divisiveness without knowing any truth about the subject at all.  That really drives me crazy.

Instead of being one of those people that just bitches about something without offering a solution, I am going to tell people what they should do:

Do not adopt the opinion of (and hopefully don't even listen to) someone who makes a living by inciting people on political topics.  Do not express uninformed opinions openly.  Learn as much as you can on the subject from the best, most unbiased sources you can find.  Judge issues on their merits.  Do not blindly follow the stance of the crowd/party/group you identify with just because.  Resist the urge to express your opinions at all (you still don't know shit about it).  If you have done all of these things, then, and only then, engage in discourse on the topic if you must.  And then, hopefully, in the privacy of your own home.

Please.

** I am a moderate with no affiliation or loyalty to any political party or philosophy.  I'm all for lively informed debate on any and all political topics.  But I don't want to hear from anyone I know or Joe the Fucking Plumber or anyone other than someone who is an expert on the subject or whose job it is to know what's what.**

Comments

[Snake Diggity]

LMAO. Too true. That's one of the negative impacts of the internet imo; too many people have too much access to too much (mis)information. Now, instead of being ignorant and silent, people are forcefed nonsense. And not only that, they can all too easily turn around and forcefeed their own version of the nonsense to everyone they know with a few keystrokes.

Politics is the same as religion in my book. I ain't buyin, so don't try to sell me.

[desertboy]

While I agree that there is much misinformation accumulating out there, I think that one cannot disregard some of the public's general distrust of the government. That is, just because a bill says it plans on one thing, doesn't necessarily mean that it won't later act as a proverbial "foot in the door." The establishment of an income tax is a classic example. Yes, initially it was designed for "just the rich," but of course later incorporated many more of us, and to increasingly greater degrees. I'm not suggesting that I necessarily believe that this will happen with any such proposed health care bill, but I can see some cynics worried over this and assuming for the worst vs. merely reading everything at face value.

[Ojo Rojo]

That's your Libertarian sensibility talking. The income tax is a good thing. How else would we pay for roads, bridges, the military, upkeep of national parks, enforcement of game laws, etc., etc., etc. Anti-government people always seem to forget that the government does a lot of good things and that the excesses of government are really a very small percentage of the overall picture. When something gets that large there is inevitably some excess and abuse as a simple matter of statistics. Take any individual American household - do they buy 10% more shit than they need? 20%? More? I think what we're seeing is that there are examples out there where the free market doesn't work. That really galls those people who believe that American=Capitalist to the point where they are ignoring the truth. Health care might be one of these. The Libertarian plan would be great except that vast numbers of the poor would be dying in the streets. I'm okay with that if you're okay with that.

[desertboy]

You misunderstood my devil's advocate; I was not putting myself in any particular category, only allowing for some of those you chastise to have a point. Sure, some are crazy, but many are just scared, and it isn't fair to call all the fear ignorance. My point was never that income tax is a bad thing (although personally, I think the government's need for income could be satisfied with a better system. How else to pay for roads? By using other types of taxes. There are many options.) but that the original sellers of the idea did not plan for what it became. And so could go a major overhaul to the healthcare system.

Personally, I am not in favor of the status quo or the current proposal(s). I want a single payer system.

[Ojo Rojo]

No, I understood. If the people I'm criticizing have a point it is completely misinformed, uninformed and reactionary. And that point is being expressed openly, which is influencing other misninformed, uninformed reactionaries. Pretty soon, even a good plan gets deep sixed because of ignorant public outcry against it. I'm not criticizing those who have studied the issue and have legitimate reasons for being against it.

[desertboy]

The original comment seemed to suggest that most if not all the opposition for the currently proposed reform is absurd/misguided/ignorant/what have you. If I misunderstood that, my bad. While it does perhaps seem that way, from watching the news, reading silly forwarded emails or FB, I caution that that may not represent the majority of dissent. Also, recent polls have indicated that since all the town hall nonsense, general opinions haven't altered much.

How about an Ojo Rojo discussion about the healthcare reform issues?

[desertboy]

Oy vey. I take it all back. These people are effin' crazy.

[Ojo Rojo]

I can't tell who's who anymore, but apparently many of the crazies lobbing Hitler comparisons are LaRouche supporters. But I've seen and heard known conservatives making the same. Maybe they bandwagoned on LaRouche's shit. Bad idea.

My criticism isn't of people who are informed dissenters. There's plenty about the health care reform bill to legitimately take issue with. It would be ignorant of me to lump all of the dissenters together and just say that they are all ignorant and uninformed. The ones getting most of the press coverage, those most visible, appear to be of the ignorant and uninformed variety.

Anyway, I'm not taking a position on the health care debate. I'm just saying that people need to get informed instead of just spouting ignorant opinions. All of the angry rhetoric is causing greater divides among people that just don't need to be.