Most of the resident faculty here at Blogistan Polytechnic Institute have made their way from the wine cellar library where they spent the weekend researching our motto of Magis vinum, magis verum ("More wine, more truth"), to the hot tub faculty lounge where they'll spend Labor Day unwinding with that game where the underwear goes flying. But as noted yesterday, Professor Plum is at home helping his kids memorize the first three chapters of Das Kapital in the original German - so far they have "Mein Vater ist ein Idiot" down pat - to be ready for President Obama's school talk on Tuesday.
Plum and the other resident faculty exchanged emails, however, and he mistakenly CC'd the staff. So we have an idea they have in mind for the coming week.
First, as always, a shout-out to last week's lecturers. Last Tuesday, Professor of Mediamaternity theKgirls offered a searing, personal account of her Fear and Loathing on health care. Last Friday, several of you stepped into an unexpected void with Morning Feature diaries, each apparently taking his/hers down when another popped up, the last of which was Professor of Ecoinsaninsuroscamology winterbanyan's story of her neighbor's Health Care Horror Story. If you missed them, please give them a read, and thank you to all who unlocked the BPI doors in my absence.
This Tuesday, Professor of Hamptomedilocagreenosophy LI Mike will tell us about his speech to a health care rally on Long Island. Chef will be in the lobby with coffee and bagels, and the Professor of Astrology Janitor will demonstrate his new exercise plan, buffer polo, in the gymnasium. You won't want to miss LI Mike's lecture or Chef's coffee. We make no such promises about buffer polo.
Note: We currently have no guest lectures scheduled for Wednesday (Sept. 9th), or next week (Sept. 15-16). If you'd like to host Morning Feature for a Tuesday or Wednesday, please volunteer in a comment below.
As for the resident faculty, they plan to discuss Charles Pierce's new book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free as an introduction to the emerging field of agnotology, the study of manufactured or culturally-induced ignorance. Agnotology is the complement to the long-studied field of epistemology - what we know and how we know it - in that agnotology looks at what we don't know and how we don't know it ... when the information in question is knowable.
That last clause is key. Agnotology isn't about information that cannot (yet) be known through observation and reason. It's about information that could be known - indeed is known by some - but that is obscured or confused, either intentionally to further some agenda, or based on elements within a given culture.
"The best place in the world to be a crank."
As Pierce argues, some degree of induced ignorance is written into our national DNA, in First Amendment protections for freedom of expression. The U.S. has a long and arguably proud history of cranks: those who write books or give speeches advocating ideas that are not provably true at the time. Some are simply ahead of their times, advocating speculative ideas that are later proven out as fact. Others are well-intentioned, but wrong. Still others are hucksters advocating ideas they know or suspect to be bogus, but that profitably tap into our collective imagination.
Pierce writes, "America is the best place in the world to be a crank," and that's not always bad. Some cranks are, after all, ahead of their times and their ideas later prove to be true. Even cranks who are just plain wrong can benefit society. Their crackpot ideas may inspire others - in that field or another - who then explore and develop new and true knowledge. Cranks help keep knowledge from ossifying and that's good ... provided we recognize their ideas as crankery unless and until those ideas prove out.
The problem, as Pierce and others note, is that some have learned how to use our long and proud tradition of crankery against us. They manufacture illusions of consensus or controversy. They hide facts and publicize lies. They divide and conquer, casting knowable issues in terms of Us vs. Them, encouraging us to pick a side and value solidarity over reason. They say everyone is entitled to his/her opinion and facts are just someone else's opinions, so no one can really know anything. Just pick the ideas that advance your team's interests ... and believe.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
And you'll find someone on TV to agree with you. He might have been recognized as a crank in a prior era, but in the modern age a crank who gets on TV is immediately part of the mainstream. If someone on cable news asks his opinion, or hires him to host a show, he must be an expert ... even if he's just repeating some crackpot idea he read on the internet.
In this state of manufactured ignorance, everyone is an expert - hence the self-referential satire of Blogistan Polytechnic Institute - so no one is an expert. Your idea is as good as mine, and if we agree then our ideas are as good as those of someone who's spent years researching or working in that field. Research that supports our side proves we're a "reality-based community," and research that doesn't is "junk science."
And if Larry Lunchbucket can't sort fact from fiction in a culture that intentionally deceives and confuses us - that is, he doesn't agree with us - he's an idiot and that proves ordinary Americans are too stupid for self-government. Which is very convenient if you're among The Powers That Be, who want to run things for their own benefit.
Our national idiocy isn't inevitable or accidental. Idiot America has roots in some of our most cherished ideals, but those ideals and our long and proud tradition of tolerating cranks have been turned against us. Cranks are now touted as experts ... less so we'll believe them than so we'll give up on knowing and just believe ... something ... anything ... so long as we only believe.
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Happy Labor Day!