White House aide Philip A. Cooney doctored reports on global warming to weaken their efficacy.
Please, can we protest this? Please, can we get mad and reignite the movement? Please, can we start to see again that the environment is the most pressing issue of our time? National and international tension is of course the most immediately visible and notable news, but the hastening effects of global warming are major factors in aggravating these strained relations. Since the beginning of humankind, the struggle has been for land, as it remains today, though veiled in politics, ideology, and war. Aknowledging the problems that we all cause for the balance of our world’s ecosystem, therefore, is an absolute neccesity in order to realize lasting peace. If we are honest, we have nothing to hide.
Please Please Please
Read the New York Times article, and get mad.
We all are from the same planet, whether we aknowledge that or not. Please do.
Yes, that’s a great article. And good for the Government Acountability Project, it’s noble and worthwhile, not to mention ballsy. The miring of truth in fluffy language is something that I feel strongly about both as a reader of literature and as someone who is regularly puzzled by the wandering reason of our politicos. It’s cultural fog and it shrouds the public from certainty and direction.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see this in the context of a societal problem, however. Everyone does it. Beaurocratic fuzz is nearly an American dialect. But from what does it stem?
I’m going to throw out a few possibilities here, but please appreciate that these are wandering conjectures meant only to generate discourse. The first of these is the growing awareness of the public. From advancing media coverage, especially via the internet, the average citizen is exposed to small bits of information all the time. This leads to a proliferation of opinions. Human beings fit information into schemas; we like to have primitives that apply to larger situations. It’s the necessity of thought: at a certain point, information must be generalized so that we can perceive the world without passing out. What I’m getting at with this is that whereas people used to be forced to trust the experts on advanced issues of science or policy, now they have some cause to cry out, “shit! I’ve got my own ideas about this.”
So what happens then when a person is pressed on their opinion that is based on a ticker headline they saw on their way to work? Bullshit, of course. It’s not particularly difficult, our generation has seen this exact evasion of precision on television since we were born. Extrapolate the infinitely complex world from a poorly constructed personal model and you get an poorly constructed world.
Cause number one, then, is the rapid spread of underinformed opinions. It establishes that we communicate imprecisely in our daily lives so that we can cover up our lack of in-depth knowledge. This is not the fault of stupid rustics or even politicians. I really see this as a processing error, and this is reason number two. The amount of information we’re exposed to has ballooned over the past few decades but the way society processes it has lagged behind. How do we deal with it all? The true blame probably lies with the media and irresponsibility in academia.
What’s the fix then? I agree with Tyler when he says that the best thing to offer is the truth. Cooney’s fuzzification is a drop in a large bucket. Ken Miller’s biology textbook is another example. I find it personally vexing why so many people are more comfortable with theories than their are with facts.
I think this entire phemenon should speak loudly to those in academic circles. If it is truth and honesty that we seek, then an awful damn lot of digging and thinking on broad planes. We are all ignorant about a lot of things. Become the expert. Be the benevolent aristocrat. Let us see if Pinko’s Copies can help us process the massive stores of information that stand before us.
June 8th, 2005 | #
Dear Jon,
It’s not you, it’s me.
(Ha, sorry. That was a joke.)
Anyway - That was very well said, my friend, thank you for contributing your 2000 cents to my poor bloggish rage. Always welcome. And your comments do raise some good points. I agree that the modern onslaught of rapidly (vapidly) mediated information (due to its commodification), coupled with a mass denial of mass misinterpretation, is directly responsible for our “problems.” Yet that brings up the question of what our problems are… What makes “problem”? Which leads me to something that you said with which I feel the need to disagree.
I deny stating that the best thing to offer is the truth. Instead, I did mention honesty. We should not get confused between the two. The truth is a lie, as it is language - language, “by definiton,” is limited. In the not-so-immortal words of Lenny Bruce, “There is no anonymous giver, except perhaps the guy who knocks up your daughter.” That is to say - with a little interpretation: Our “problems” are only what are designated as such (by us).
The “true” (ha) problem, therefore, “lies” (ha) in anonymity. Honesty is only to reveal yourself - “we have nothing to hide.” So when Philip Cooney puts his 264 cents (per gallon) into an otherwise scientific study on global warming without aknowledging his “contributions” (how humble), he is using anonymity as a symbol of truth.
So… basically, what I’m getting at is that politicians are dishonest.
Go figure.
June 17th, 2005 | #