Time magazine excerpts Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason today. In this blurb from his book, Al Gore looks at the American people and he doesn't like what he sees. We are too busy distracting ourselves with games, gadgets and mind numbing television and not spending enough time being active citizens. I, with some reservations, think Gore is onto something. Here are some point by point critiques of Gore's article.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to [tabloid stories], our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.
How convenient, one might say, that reason, cold calculating reason, should inevitably confirm every one of Al Gore's policy views. Perhaps those who disagree with Mr. Gore, say on the war in Iraq, also had reasons, sound and defensible reasons. Even if the war in Iraq was a "grievous mistake," was that as easily foreseeable as Mr. Gore believes? And perhaps, sometimes, reason errs. Gore continues:
Radio, the Internet, movies, cell phones, iPods, computers, instant messaging, video games and personal digital assistants all now vie for our attention—but it is television that still dominates the flow of information. According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every day—90 minutes more than the world average. When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time the average American has.
In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation. Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They hear, but they do not speak. The "well-informed citizenry" is in danger of becoming the "well-amused audience."
Are we in danger of being an "Idiocracy"? Gore may be on to something, although how he intends to combat this problem is not clear. Gore sees the American populace as distracted, addled, and easily manipulated. To combat this, Gore suggests a rule of reason:
In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason.
No objection here, as far as it goes, although one can already anticipate how reason will once again endorse Al Gore's policy preferences. Does Gore realize that reason is clouded by prejudice and self-interest, and also reason does not speak with one clear voice?
What is the solution? Not education, civic or otherwise; Gore rejects both as inadequate:
So the remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be)...
The solution is open discourse, especially that on the Internet. And that requires...more government regulation:
But the Internet must be developed and protected, in the same way we develop and protect markets—through the establishment of fair rules of engagement and the exercise of the rule of law. The same ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the Internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic. We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Web.
How odd that the future of the Republic depends on government regulation of the Internet. Am I missing something? Are websites being shut down by their greedy corporate service providers, thus requiring government intervention and regulation? The only websites I know of that are being shut down are the ones shut down by the government because the sites' political speech do not conform to the dictates of our federal campaign finance law.
I commend Gore for his defense of human reason. I hope he recognizes that the assault on reason today exists mostly in the left-wing dominated academy where post-modernism says reason means nothing while perspective and narrative mean everything (thus the multiculturalism fetish). There is a right-wing assault on reason, to be sure, from some quarters of the religious right, but one should not confuse questioning the moral limits of science with the questioning of the scientific method itself. If one is interested in left-wing assaults on science and reason, check out these posts from a recent discussion on NRO, here, here, here, and here.
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