Are we even looking for the truth?

Nowadays, going to the media for "truth" is like going to a hooker just to have an intelligent conversation. You might get it, but it is not the business that they are in. Just like hookers, the news outlets are salesmen/entertainers. Lets not pretend that they have ever been anything else.

During the Watergate scandal, there were few sources for news and entertainment- three channels, and a few newspapers. The news outlets had to present what it thought the vast majority would accept to stay competitive. So truth was more prevalent than the entertainment portion of the equation. Now we have more choices for our information than we care for and the various outlets must compete aggressicvely with each other not for the vast majorty, but for smaller niche markets. The only way to effectively do that is to up the entertainment factor, which makes the media far easier to manipulate by any political system.

Watergate wasn't the first or the last time that either party has ever done shady stuff to gain leverage over the other. But less than ten percent of the shady stuff ever becomes news. Is it so secret that the news outlets can't expose it? No. It is just not as ratings-worthy as a fight. This concept isn't new. Even Ancient Rome knew that the people would rather see a fight than a scandal. Perhaps you are correct to be scared. America is very much heading down the same path as Rome was before it fell.

As for caring about truth, I think that is on the decline. People feel increasingly entitled to have a philosophy that will tell them that they can have their cake and eat it too. That the truth can't be known so why bother? That they can have freedom and security at the same time. That they can do whatever they want and not face the consequences. The solution: Stop enabling people to have these philosphies. Thrust the truth upon them. Tell people that they suck sorry sacks when they do. And slap them. And then back up your statement with facts. Slap them again. And then leave them alone. God I hate people.

So where do we look for 'truth'? Can we even look for it in the news?

It just makes me think of doublespeak:

His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.

1984

TTF

I'm not saying that the news is not a reference for finding facts. It's just that the news is very selective in the facts it presents and objectivity does not sell pharmaceuticals or soft drinks. One must possess and exercise a critical and somewhat skeptical mind toward the news, always asking why they choose to emphasize some facts and omit others and to mentally separate the entertainment from the information.

It is a frustrating problem. That is why you should slap people that evade truth and especially those enable people to evade truth. Maybe after the average man gets slapped enough, he will demand a better source of news and then the pharmaceuticals or soft drinks company will supply one. But until the mentally and morally lazy get fed up with being slapped and are no longer satisfied with being spoon-fed their opinions from either the right or left, you will have to study extra hard and find the truth between the lines as well as in them.

The passage you quoted made it seem like doublethink creeped within him without his consent. The problem we have today is that people are begging for doublethink as an escape from harsh feelings. An example of this is the concept of diversity enforcement that has taken over campuses and workplaces across the country. People want to take away freedom of speech so that they may be free from being offended. Never mind that the free exchange of ideas (offensive or not) is the true benefit of diversity.

I think it does creep up on most without thier consent. Or rather, they are so used to giving up thier cosent to others opinions that the very mental tools they use to discern truth has been given up to others conceptions of how they should think.

This allows George Bush to say that he does not want to spend the tax payers money on destroying life (about stem cell research) and keep a straight face.

TF

ttf

In 1974 the world was divided by strong and aggressive ideologies. Sovietic comunism, chinese cultural revolution, Cuba, the third world raising the voice against US and Soviet Union, Guevara and the "guerrilla", women liberation fight, black mouvements ...
The newspapers new that the public was interested in politics, and the media themselves were part of the debate.

Now, in 2005, look at the world. Bush, Puttin, Schröeder, have no ideology. Not even a bad one.
To look for the truth? But first we must define what is truth and the criteria in order to reach it. For that you must have philosophical and political choices. And who, in this world wants that?
Sports, Jackson's trial, Sports, casualties in Irak, Sports. Ah, and religion. When reason sleeps, superstition awakes.

To use a christian metaphor: this is purgatory. No more Hell, no more Paradise. They are too strong and demanding.

I am waiting for the next Alaric.

News is entertainment.

Commercial news outlets provide stories that you want to see, not what you (perhaps) should see....

and yes, I'm looking at YOU Lois Common-Denominator.

Why would YOU care how many people died in Sudan today if Michael Jackson feints in court?

(PS. I know this because it is partly my doing, every day as part of my work)

How can a bad philosophy creep up on one without one's consent? Acceptance of any idea requires volition. It is a choice, even if the choice is to accept things by default without any critical analysis. Allowing oneself to be spoonfed ideas, regardless of their substance or the internal contradictions they create is moral laziness. People seem to be in the habit of excusing other's bad philosophies just because they accepted them passively. Thats like excusing the losing team for their loss because they could have won if they really wanted to. No. This is the evil that tears down great empires. The cancer that eats us from within. People need to be reminded continually that every undiscovered solution to any problem, every dream or goal, even their very survival depends on a ruthless pursuit of knowledge and truth of the world they live in. The fact that our leaders can get away with stupidity is just further evidence that we are a nation of enablers and excusers. People need to get over this non-judgementalism and start judging the crap out of stuff. Judge not lest ye be judged? That just tells me to live better so I can judge more, not judge less so I can go on living in stupidity.

I think we look for information that fits our idea of the "truth." It always amazes me how on just about any topic you can have "evidence" for both sides of an idea. Each side contradicts the other but both make sense to a certain degree. Which one is the truth? The one you believe to be the truth.

I think the lack of volition is a volition. These people lack the will not to accept information as fact. Thus accept it tacitly.

TTF