| Author |
Message |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - 3:35 pm: | |
The term sounds abusive but it is accurate I think. See if it strikes a cord in anyone. What I am thinking of is the strange phenomena of people who have say three televisions in their household, two or three computers, who go out to work, who engage with the world and so forth but who know next to nothing about what is actually happening in the wider field of things. They are so involved with their mobiles/magazines/Hello!/tv series/favourite web sites - that they end up information-starved: fed exclusively on the one-dimensional diet of their private/public concerns. If you gave them a map they would think Israel (if they have heard of it) is in Australia. I think there are increasing numbers of people like this. You mention something standard in a conversation such as about Fritzl and they say "Who is he?" The news passed them by entirely in spite of their three televisions. |
dan
Username: dan
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - 9:10 am: | |
One of my favourite quotes is Ben Hecht's "Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."
In this age of 24-hour news, people become hooked on the drip-drip feed of new information, but these drips rarely build into stalactites of knowledge (please excuse the crap metaphor). I'm addicted to newspapers, but trying to wean myself off them (at the moment I restrict myself to the odd Saturday Guardian) because they depress me and steal time which could otherwise be spent reading books (I'm currently reading Felicity Lawrence's "Eat Your Heart Out", which depresses me even more). |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - 9:24 am: | |
I think I am an information zombie too, actually.
'The expert eye of ignorance' I cast on everything, on the world. There is a stupid poem by Pam Ayers called "They should 'ave asked my 'usband" which unfortunately is true to type. They should 'ave asked me!
The kind of fog one moves in in one's personal world. I dutifully buy organic, thinking that this is winning the war against pesticides etc. Then I read, "Organic produce constites just 2% of all the produce bought and sold in the UK." |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 - 2:43 pm: | |
We're in the midst of too much information, and not enough knowledge.
I was going to say that this is a tabloid mentality - but I know several "educated" people who take great pride (a very English attitude) in never even having heard of, say, Eno or Cage.
Or rather, they know Cage's *name,* and that's enough to sneer about. The notion of spending two minutes on Wikipedia and expanding their perception never occurs, somehow.
Sad, isn't it? |
mjp
Username: mjp
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 8:08 am: | |
I see, Martin, snobbery is a specialised form of Information Zombi-ism. I agree.
I think sometimes: "I don't think I know what knowledge is." Society is like that imp who builds the bell in Andrei Rublev. The whole thing is bluff, but in the end it actually works. That little imp takes responsibility. The bell swings on its hinge the arc grows greater and greater and eventually there is a deep, resonant "Doonnnnng!!!" In spite of the Italian ambassadors having a gossip. |
dan
Username: dan
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 11:14 am: | |
Lots of interesting stuff about knowledge vs. information in this book:
http://www.sumption.org/articles/brandRepublic-Int ernetWeatherBookReview.html |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 11:50 am: | |
Ah, "truth." The most valuable pursuit of journalism:
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/david_aaronovitch_a _different_kind_of_compassion |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 8:35 am: | |
- And there's so much to find out about the world we live in, too:
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php |