New Word: Oblivioiropocracy. Derived from: oblivious, irony, hypocrisy. Definition: v. The act of complete unawareness that you are demonstrating the very traits that you criticize in others. n. A form of government first introduced in North America in the early 21st century.
There’s a little-known Weird Al Yankovich song out there, entitled “The White Stuff”. It extols the “virtues” of “the white stuff” in the middle of an Oreo. One of the lines is “I think my pancreas just went into shock”, implying that the sugar-saturated lard of the white stuff was too much for his body’s ability to handle all the crap he’s taken in.
My brain knows how his pancreas feels.
I’ve had the intellectual equivalent of way to much White Stuff. Whatever gland is responsible for processing and neutralizing exposure to Oblivioiropocracy has seized up, begun smoking, and given me the double bird as a response to any suggestions that it get back to work.
As you might have guessed, this involves the Agape Press. They have an article detailing how there is a growing trend for people to rely on “recieved knowledge” rather than their own sense of reason. This, combined with the tendency of the press to be vapid, insipid and biased, is a dangerous combination.
OK, I’m all over that….but a little confused. After all, the Agape press has historically demanded strict and unwavering reliance on the “received knowledge” of the Bible at the same time it has repeatedly demeaned the powers of the human mind to figure anything out on its own. It’s a tenant of the fundamentalist mindset that people should not rely on their own reasoning, but on the word of God (as received from the Bible, which was written by men who received it from God).
But, you know, there’s no reason that people can’t change their minds.
To quote the article:
"The result of this has been, ultimately, that more and more people rely on received knowledge," LeGault says. They take their information and conclusions "from news media primarily," he asserts, or in any case, "from other people, rather than doing thinking on their own or asking questions -- hard questions."
The author of Th!nk says this reliance on media for more and more information has caused the facts to be increasingly filtered through various biases. "Behind each one of these as it's presented in the media," he contends, "are other information and other sides to the story that are often not presented, and our general tendency is to believe these wholesale, without question."
Also, LeGault notes, this phenomenon has resulted in what he calls a "greatest hits" mentality, where news media outlets exploit hot-button issues in an effort to increase their ratings and bring in advertising dollars. As a result, he suggests, the public has come to rely on pithy pundits and appeals to passion instead of real, objective information.
See what I mean? Here I am thinking: “ did someone re-arrange my URLS? Did someone vandalize this site? Have I finally gone completely mad? What’s up? Is this some kind of joke?”
Then, I get to the punch line:
Americans are buying into all kinds of media hype, LeGault asserts, because many have lost the ability to think critically, weighing information and separating opinion and propaganda from actual facts. He says this is why so many people tend to believe unfounded claims such as global warming theories or the idea that the Earth is running out of oil.
I’ll be over here in the corner, rocking gently back and forth. I don’t recommend bothering me for a while.