Sunday, April 13, 2008

It's not the information age

The real problem is not that there's a blizzard of information. Instead, there's a deluge of bullshit in the guise of information. Trying to get food for thought out of that torrent is the hard task.

What is real is too boring; even reporters want to tell us what it means. Today's story is too late; they want to guess what tomorrow's will be. What happened? Who cares! We don't even want to try to read the shadows on the cave wall anymore.

Pundits pick out whatever suits their favored narratives and leap to conclusions about all the rest. All the better if the RNC's blast faxes reinforce the stupidity. Ecstasy if Hillary's public statements about Obama also reinforce the new conventional wisdom.

The pundits face no consequences when they're wrong, not even the requirement that they admit it. Not even the requirement to stop saying well-worn, thoroughly debunked bullshit.

Practically everyone in the normal world has turned their bullshit detectors off or else burned them out listening to the shouting of "Jane you ignorant slut" in a thousand voices. They've found that no matter what ugly prejudice they choose to believe, someone somewhere will defend their point of view as if it really makes sense and will flattering them while doing it.

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