Monday, July 04, 2011

Over-informed and Under-educated

I was recently studying in a relatively public place after a beautiful morning that started with a long walk covering eighteen holes. The sunrise was beautiful.

In this public place Fox News was on.

I was not paying much attention to it, but I noted that every two to three minutes the story changes. It was frustrating since it grabbed my attention a bit, wanting to know what I was missing “now.” And “now” was every couple of minutes. The reality is that it wasn’t anything I actually needed to know. It was just clutter.

It reminds me that we live in a culture of soundbytes. We crave information. But we crave it on the surface. We want to know a little about a lot, but pretend that we know a lot about it.

It’s generally bad for civil discourse.

It’s worse for actual knowledge and informed opinions.

It certainly can’t sustain a decent culture of any sort.

It’s why Carson says we need to read the internet less and books more.

But I gotta keep this short so I will leave it at that.

1 comment:

Kent Brandenburg said...

Larry,

At first I enjoyed this post, but I grew under conviction for even reading. You and I agree, however, which is bound to shrink your audience.

This comment fizzles like an independence day sparkler.