"Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study"

[applegrove]

Cultural production of ignorance provides rich field for study

By Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20140307,0,3373375,full.column#axzz2vUpVvjna

"SNIP.......................


A second danger is that ignorance interferes with the creation of intelligent policy. Citing the results of a 2012 Gallup poll, Proctor asks, "If half the country thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old, how can you really develop an effective environmental policy? This sort of traditional or inertial ignorance bars us from being able to act responsibly on large social issues."

Still, it's commercially manufactured ignorance that's most insidious. And Big Tobacco, that great pioneer in the field, is still at it.

The industry has succeeded in persuading the public and politicians that it has lost the smoking war, but that's a myth. Proctor says 40 million Americans still smoke and tobacco use is still rising in much of the world. Moreover, the industry's program isn't just about cigarettes, but part of "a larger agnotological project to promote free-market fundamentalism," he points out.

As Stanton A. Glantz of UC San Francisco documented last year, the tobacco industry was deeply involved in the evolution of the tea party movement, which promoted some of the industry's cherished aims, such as fighting tobacco taxes and anti-smoking laws.

"The Tea Party of the late 2000s has become the 'movement'" envisioned by a Reynolds executive 10 years earlier, Glantz concluded, "grounded in patriotic values of 'freedom' and 'choice' to change how people see the role of 'government' and 'big business' in their lives."



......................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Just the idea of what we are not getting done because the GOP wants stupid voters

is a big one. What could the world be without these selfish, selfish people taking over the agenda.

[okaawhatever]

2. K & R nt

[jtuck004]

3. I think you should repost this under the heading "HEY- DID YOU SEE THIS!!!???" or somthing <G>

Beyond the fact that we are awash in this process in the entire country, it might be worth people taking a look, mostly because of this little gem lower in the article:

...
The dangers of ignorance's foothold in public discourse are twofold.

First, once allowed to take root, misinformation — whether cultural or manufactured — is very hard to dislodge.

In a recent study, a research team headed by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College tried four methods to change the minds of parents who had decided not to immunize their children with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine — a factual refutation of the vaccine-autism link; two different means of warning about the risks to children from contracting measles, mumps or rubella, including "a dramatic narrative about an infant who almost died of measles"; and horrific photos of children suffering from the diseases.

Some of the interventions persuaded the parents that the autism link was specious, but not a single one made the parents more willing to vaccinate their children. And some intensified opposition to the vaccine, a "backfire" effect.

A second danger is that ignorance interferes with the creation of intelligent policy. Citing the results of a 2012 Gallup poll, Proctor asks, "If half the country thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old, how can you really develop an effective environmental policy? This sort of traditional or inertial ignorance bars us from being able to act responsibly on large social issues."
...

So they KNEW the link to autism was specious, yet they still were not more likely to vaccinate. Yet the risks are such that it would not be unlikely that this course of action could kill their child, and perhaps another.

Still didn't make a difference. Nope.

There are other people like that.