At the dawn of the “information age” in which we now live, tech enthusiasts and those interested in the potential of limitless accessible information optimistically foretold a future full of knowledgeable, considerate people, and likewise considered the Internet a space beyond corporate interest. It seems we’ve missed a step. Or at least, the way the Internet — and this information age — have actually played out on a macro level, is less inspiring than early predictors. While information and connection are pinnacles of the Internet as a medium, so too are hate and intolerance and misinformation.
How else might we explain the rise of certain presidential candidates whose campaigns seem to be beyond fact-checking, which operate without being affected by the endless supply of testimonials and organizations that decry misguided or harmful policy positions? The amount of information presented in the news, the Internet or on television is surely enough to adequately inform the people, if not of the world, then at least of the United States of America. But this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Writers like Susan Sontag have lamented the endless nature of information online and in the media. To her, infinitely told stories offered by television and, by extension, the Internet “offer a lesson in amorality and detachment that is antithetical to the one embodied by the enterprise of the novel.” Sontag’s critique of rabbit-hole media is not so much against its presentation of information. Rather, she critiques the idea that one can consistently find any opinion supporting their own, already-held beliefs — a capability distinctly not shared by the deliberateness of the novel. In our limitless stratosphere within which we can search through blogs, news organizations of varying political bias, vitriolic social media commentary and videos tailored to enhancing preconceived messages, no one is ever required to challenge themselves.
Surely, it’s a testament to our era that the presentation of information remains equal and unbiased. We must hold as a standard the ability of users of the Internet to say what they would like to say. Unfortunately, it would also seem that the market is far less self-regulating than would be imagined.
The tools at hand make it too easy to ignore the truth, too simple to avoid sifting between fact and opinion. When Ted Cruz so ignominiously condemned American Muslims last week and called on the police to monitor “Muslim communities,” supporters of Ted Cruz were unlikely to witness the collective backlash by pure virtue of having surrounded themselves by sources adherent to a Cruz-ian philosophy.
This phenomenon has been examined in great detail; we tend to follow news outlets that support our biases, limiting our ability to un-couch ourselves from our own perspective. We virtually refuse to deliberate between contrasting views because we’re only ever presented with one set of opinions: ours. In this way, the Internet and television are not dialogic. They are echo chambers, repeating back to us what we have symbolically shouted into them.
I met a colleague this week who confided to me he reads both The New York Times and The Washington Post cover-to-cover every day. He bragged this was how he remained optimally informed, a savviness manifested in his intelligent remarks which I couldn’t help but admire in the course of our conversation. While both the Times and the Post pander to their respective political audiences, one could make the argument that only in the space between polarized opinions lies something resembling truth. This is a fact unfortunately ignored in the debauched era we live in. Because, while it is indeed an information age, author Mark Roeder said it best when he acknowledged that “information is not knowledge.”
The art of deliberation is a subtle and seemingly regressive one. The paradox with which our generation inevitably grapples makes it too easy to have a one-track mind. When thinking to yourself, “How can anybody support Donald Trump?” remember that those who seem the most uninformed may not actually be so. They may be informed up to their eyeballs — but with misinformation.
My prescription: be skeptical of information. Read widely. Don’t essentialize anything you see on television or read on the Internet. Don’t assume. If we follow these suggestions, I believe we might one day reach an age of knowledge, and be all the better for it.