When Will We Ever Learn

I remember the first time I walked into a public library with my Dad. I had gone before, but it was always just a fast affair. It was summer of 1976, and Dad wanted to walk around, so I did the same. Being thirteen at the time, I no longer needed to visit the children's section. For the first time, I was looking at adult books.

The sheer number of books at the Regency Branch was astonishing to my young mind. But there weren't just books. There was music, records, plenty of them. There were also newspapers and magazines from all over the country, and I flipped through the "New York Times" for the first time. Sandalwood Junior and Senior High had them as well, but I never paid attention; here, they leaped out at me.

The sheer bulk of information available at my fingertips left a lasting impression on me. For me, libraries are every bit as important as any other civic institution, and perhaps on par with churches in relevance. Keep in mind that this was still the mid 1970's, and most mass consumed communication at the time consisted of radio, television and the various publications. Keeping current usually meant that you were maybe a day behind, though with television big events could, and did, preempt anything showing at the time.

Still, the amount of disinformation that I encountered (and frequently believed as well) was amazing. By the time I graduated, I was learning how to discern the chaff from the wheat, and still struggle to move beyond innuendo and rumor. For me, that library, as well as the one I worked in at school, were brains to borrow. It was all free.

Around the time I entered college, the first computer networks were being traced between many of the local colleges. The potential power, the promise, they held amazed me. I knew that the day was coming when those same college networks would connect everyone. It had been speculated for years that this was coming. By 1995, thanks to companies like AOL and early social sites like The Well, millions of homes were connected. Today, it is rare to encounter a household without the Internet.

When you think about it, this is sort of like a digital library of Alexandria... with scandal sheets, bulletin boards and diaries for the reading. While not perfect, there is plenty of verifiable information on the Internet, real honest information. It is not perfect, but it is current. News is almost instantaneous. So is innuendo and rumor.

Somehow expecting that at an age when news and information could be had in mere seconds that people could verify information for themselves, to discern the chaff from the wheat, was simplistic and naive.

While the facts may be the facts, belief systems are harder to overcome. If something looks too far fetched but fits into our belief system, it is easier to not look for those facts than to overturn those beliefs. For us, our perceptions are more important, too valuable.

I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't a victim of my blind faith at times.

The inability to acknowledge facts when they come up against our beliefs is not just a human weakness. It is a fatal flaw, something those who wish to control us seek to control at any given chance. In this day of oligarchs and plutocrats it is easy to be manipulated. Even well meaning, though sometimes occasionally misguided, friends and family fall into these traps and rifts can form. The powerful are not so misguided, and their pockets deep, their will strong.

But not invincible.

For their control depends upon an uniformed public, one which won't verify facts. They may seek to control that flow of information, and in many cases have succeeded in turning the tables. Facts, though, are immutable, and sooner or later resurface.

It is up to us, therefore, to try to stay ahead of the hucksters. They have plenty of flash, plenty of noise. We must look beyond all of that. We must learn.