Don't confuse them with facts

[Lorien]

(snip)

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.

I submit that any people thus handicapped sow the seeds of their own decline; they respond to the world as they wish it were rather to the world as it is. That's the story of the Iraq war.

But objective reality does not change because you refuse to accept it. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge a wall does not change the fact that it's a wall.

(snip)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2011132171_pitts21.html

[Lorien]

1. So, someone unrecced this because they don't like...facts?

What's next?

[Journeyman]

3. "Facts, sir, are the enemy of truth!" ~ Don Quixote de la Mancha

And they have a decidedly liberal bent. Or so Stephen Colbert tells me.


(Edited to add Colbert's observation.)

[Lorien]

4. Lol!

:hi:

[yurbud]

2. charter schools will accelerate this further fragmenting civic knowledge

[Newest Reality]

5. I am having a big problem ...

with this huge, collective "we" that gets bandied about so often.

Oh, sure, it is easy to toss out we, they, our, etc.

The problem is that a little more effort would make the statements, overall, more correct and then, I wouldn't have to say this at all.

We did this. They did that. Most people _____. This is simply a lazy and corrupt way to form identity or gain validity when there is no statistical or factual evidence behind the implications.

Will it ever come to the point where we stop using the collective we, they, etc.? I often don't find myself connected to these connections. For instance, when an ethnic group says, "We were persecuted by the (fill in name here) back in (fill in date here) what they hell do they really mean? They were not there and their persecutors may not be here.

I am the last to demand absolute precision in grammar or spelling, but if we could get over the endless abuse of expressions that include "collective we's" and "they's" and be more precise, we might actually get somewhere.

Divide and conquer is what I am getting at here. Decisiveness via the common use of language is obviously affecting us all and yet, it is very obvious when you inspect it carefully. Yes, being more aware and sincere on this subject is a matter to consider. After all, language is the medium we use to convey our state and, while people worry about minutiae like grammar and spelling, their are more abstract issues that are being overlooked and even ignored entirely. That is what matters to me and our precision in this matter could possibly make a noticble difference in the info wars we find ourselves immersed in today.

[Demeter]

6. We Are Screwed. I Think You'll Accept That Collective Statement

[Skittles]

7. the thing is, "Newest Reality"

is that WE know who THEY are - the willfully ignorant who soak up utter shit like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh - we are VERY aware of them because they are TAKING AMERICA DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL

[SkyDaddy7]

8. As things get worse...

We will be told we need to get closer to GAWD only making the problems we have now MUCH MUCH worse!

[tom_paine]

10. We'll be VERY LUCKY if that's all we will be told when things get worse

I suspect it will be more like "Liberals are responsible for all the bad thing that have ever happened If only we could get rid of them and their pernicious influencs, everything would be great again."

Or maybe just "kill the Liberals."

However it goes down it will be disturbingly similar to other such authoritarian movements of the past, I suspect.

[Zoeisright]

9. You know, this hit the nail right smack dab on the head.

I've been puzzled why facts, logic, and arguments don't seem to matter anymore. You state a fact to a repuke and all they say is 'I don't believe that'. And that's considered an 'argument'.

Well, we can sure thank 30 years of the dumbing down of America for this. Reagan has succeeded in finally destroying this country.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended. An excellent column.

Thanks for the thread, Lorien.:thumbsup:

[JohnWxy]

12. Well, if you insist upon referring ot the facts how can we have our hysteria?!