Has America Plunged into Agnotology - A Culture That Creates Ignorance and Stupidity?

Just because you ignore the facts doesn’t mean they cease to exist. But you wouldn’t know this if you lived in America.

Whereas Allianz’s chief economic adviser Mohamed El-Erian just said wealth inequality is a “good thing,” an aging nuclear industry wants more deregulation. And then there’s Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump. The radio host, who claims to be “on loan from God,” dismissed the Christchurch shooter as a leftist who staged a “false flag” attack to frame conservatives. Against the backdrop of the same massacre, the president deliberately warned that “his people” were prepared to fight against left-wing students who protested right-wing commentators on college campuses. This doesn’t even include his 9,000 made-up statements-according to the Washington Post.

Culturally Constructing Stupidity
If a person is judged by the company they keep, it’s clear that many Americans may have already plunged into what one history professor called agnotology - the study of culturally constructed ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance and stupidity that’s not only manufactured by special interest groups to suppress facts and create confusion, but which is deployed by the main stream media and politicians to gain power and prestige. This includes sowing the seeds of doubt with either outright lies and inaccurate and misleading data, or completely discounting the experiences of others. Consequently, to be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

It’s also the malady of living in a nation that’s not only trivializing democracy but is no longer populated by geniuses. In other words, most politicians and presidents have been overmatched mediocrities in critical and evaluative thinking skills, long-term insight, and the eloquence and honor needed to govern. It entails vast sums of money and armies of lobbyists who are eager to spread money around to persuade morally negligent politicians to keep quiet about dangerous issues. Issues that range from unclean drinking waters and addictive medicines to environmental pollution and blowback from a global arms market and foreign wars of “stupidity.”

Shallowness, Television, and Stupid Hyperboles
Many years after his apprenticeship with Robert Kennedy, Adam Walinsky said: “Television has ruined every single thing it has touched.” He may have been correct. Not only have presidential debates, State of the Union addresses, hurricanes, assassinations, prime-time press conferences, terrorist attacks, and wars become real time spectacles, but a politician’s ability to perform in public has become his/her most important asset. In other words, everything has become one big televised advertising campaign to communicate in a more powerful and intimate (or negative) way a certain political agenda. Clever lines and stupid hyperboles have moreover been substituted for lengthy debates and discussions. The same is true of attention spans.

Another thing that’s turning America into a culture of stupidity is the shallowness of candidates and public life. Due in part to a mass media which refuses to pursue investigative news, overly cynical and bland candidates get a free pass as they spend most of their time raising money and less time immersing themselves into the daily struggles of Americans. If they are ever going to make the right decisions, citizens are going to have to do their part too. Politics must become more than a distant land - Washington. Research, debating the more important issues through reason and logic, and forcing politicians to account for their actions will have to be prioritized.

E’tu Journalists and Talk Radio?
Even journalists have been required to offer the many foolish ways to quantify the same kind of bland and cynical infotainment news. This, rather than a sober assessment of character and leadership ability of politicians. As news slipped in a culture of stupidity, so did Washington. Republican congressmen Newt Gingrich was a brilliant pioneer of this new ignorance - displaying impatience with the unspoken norms and traditions of legislative process - let alone respect. Given the new class of para-journalists and mindless bloggers - whose main function was to perform instead of report - simplistic answers to complicated questions became more common.

Another thing that became more commonplace was the rabid and vitriolic rhetoric that now permeates the airwaves. This included the raging television torrents and strange new theatrics of talking heads which transformed every last word or hand-shake into a potentially career-threatening experience. Because of this, advertising experts and psychologists have been hired to run campaigns-and to tell possible voters what to think. Known as re-branding, Roger Ailes who invented Fox News Channel was a master. He understood the importance of staged events, of putting on performances rather than allowing the transparency of reality.

Masters of Doubt and Manipulation
For decades cigarette companies notoriously implemented this unreality. They became pros at the tactics of agnotology - ignoring any evidence that huffing a carton of Marlboros might cause harm. As millions died from lung cancer, the industry hired researchers to produce a mountain of reports about all aspects of smoking - except its health risks. The same is true of war, pollution, a loss of workers’ rights and pay, a dangerous infrastructure, and unsafe drinking water. “Doubt is our product,” said one tobacco marketing executive, “since it is the best means of competing with the body of fact that exists in the mind of the general public.” He could’ve added lies.

Rex Sorgatz, in “The Encyclopedia of Misinformation,” writes that the insidious conceit of agnotology succeeds not by a lack of information but by a surfeit of it. He makes a good point. The massive amounts of trivial information make some fall into a stupor. For others, the massive amounts of disinformation make them cast doubt on entire issues. Masters of manipulation have furthermore muddied countless scientific waters, formulating questions that already had answers: Is global warming real? Do football concussions create chronic brain damage? Are prescription opiates addictive? Is war bad? And is Donald Trump a narcissist and dangerous?

“I Give Up!”
When Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, claimed the president’s veiled threats of violence was really about how peaceful his supporters were, CNN’s Chris Cuomo said, “I give up!” This is the danger of living in a society that creates stupidity. The same goes for those who stage political events or electioneer general elections. Someone out there has sadly created the answer you and others crave - the one that already matches your and their preexisting beliefs. They have it down to an art and science, including ways to manipulate and socially engineer. And it’s here to stay. This too is another fact that won’t go away just because it might be ignored.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.