Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Quote of the Day: Peter Mehlman

On the Information Age: "...we spend our lives preparing for an argument we'll never have with a person we'll never meet whose opinions we could never change.

"Just Give Me Some Truth"

He makes the observation that crimes and dishonors committed by people in power no longer get taken seriously because there's always a dozen other voices defending the wrongdoer. All "truth" becomes relative in the Modern Media.

The problem is that The Information Age is exactly the opposite. There's no longer anything even close to a consensus of where we gather truth. This isn't the information age, it's the blather-ation age. All we have is a trillion sources from which to choose truths we want to believe.

3 comments:

JoyZeeBoy said...

And yet....

the Founders preferred a free and unfettered "press" under the theory that people could, and would, decide for themselves precisely what the "truth" was.

The New York Times does not always speak on my behalf. No one does. Not always. I like my truth "a la carte."

Steve Schalchlin said...

I agree with your point, but not everything has an equal argument. For instance, it always bugs me that when a gay person is interviewed on the news, they always have to stick some jerk from some "pro-family" org in. It's like putting a KKK person on every time they discuss a black issue.

JoyZeeBoy said...

You're right that we're nearly always served up to the public in a "Point-Counterpoint" style of political correctness wherein we're attacked by some loudmouth from the RRR who selectively quotes from Leviticus and Romans (But what about shellfish? And leather shoes? And sleeping with the wife while she's having her period? Or sleeping with the wife, period?).

And yet, I harbor the magical notion that many, a great many, of the viewers of these types of debacles can see right through the bullying tactics used by the screamers.

I'm also cognizant of the fact that so-called "news" organizations are actually in the business of selling advertising.

And as you know, "if it bleeds, it leads."