Unfortunately, that is NOT what is happening. Over the past few years, I have seen an alarming trend where people simply ignore fact and stick to their argument anyway. This might not be so bad when you're discussing the relative merits of a particular store at the mall and whether or not the sales people are rude, but when you have people in positions of power spouting off, it's a problem. How do you know what to believe?
Leonard Pitts, in his column yesterday, describes his recent encounter with a reader who simply did not believe the facts. The documented facts, according to the reader, were wrong. The reader knew, without a doubt, the real story and accused Pitts of lying to the public. Pitts charges that we are in trouble.
To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper's online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe.Read the entire column here.
Getting to the bottom of a story does not require you to become a professional journalist. Having access to information presented in a factual way is vital to democracy. Leave a comment discussing how you will inoculate yourself against unreasonable arguments and get to the heart of real issues. How will you preserve our democracy?
