Should go without saying, but many things that should go
without saying must be said and repeated in 21st century America.
Here's another of them. The Yale philosophy professor Brand
Blanshard said, “Science … means more than a set of conclusions; it means also
a set of methods and intellectual habits. The most important of these habits is
adherence to a rule that is felt to be at once intellectual and moral, the rule
of adjusting one’s assent to the evidence.”
That obvious principle — that reality requires you to accept
the plain evidence before you, not try to hide it or pervert it — was once
taken for granted by all even minimally educated children in this nation. Now
tens of millions of adults, maybe even a majority of Americans, willfully
ignore it. To our great shame. To our profound peril.
You see, intellectual honesty is not merely admirable. It’s
the necessary precondition that permits civilization to survive.
Get me started on this and you might not be able to stop me; here are a couple for now.
ReplyDeleteAdvertising has a financial bias and therefore has no credibility yet the cost of advertising has to be passed on to the consumer even though they don't pass on any influence.
When corporations contribute to campaigns they pass those costs on to consumer too;without passing on any influence.
A sincere democracy requires an informed public therefore they have to have diverse views and news from different sources and the educational background to back it up. This means that it is incompatible with a media system that is controlled by six conglomerates that get their revenue from advertising.
A sincere democracy should enable the public to hear from all candidates that are running for office therefore those six conglomerates would never be allowed to withhold coverage of sincere candidates while continuing to get preferential treatment from the government.
Is that more than just a couple already?