develop opinions based on evidence and to better evaluate others’ opinions. It is also crucial in the development of common knowledge: a set of facts and standards we can all deploy in debates. This was the goal of one of the greatest Enlightenment projects, the French
Encyclopédie
. Diderot, the mastermind behind this project, said “All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard to anyone’s feelings.” 19
Is this the case today? Sadly, no. A goodly chunk of media-speak and political rhetoric exists for the express purpose of provoking feelings rather than reasonable arguments about the facts. Then there are the forbidden facts, concealed in the interest of national and corporate security. Any number ofexaminations, debates, and investigations can never bubble up to the level of public attention lest they adversely affect some industry, leak strategically valuable information, spark litigation, or transgress one of our new articles of faith. And one of those new articles of faith, conveniently enough, is that we are the freest people in the world.
I saw an ad on TV not long ago that began and ended with the declaration “Free expression is what I’m all about,” a sentiment sure to meet with near-universal approval. But the product the ad was pushing was Botox, a poison that freezes your face into a stiff rictus that creepily approximates youth. Again – and in the most literal way – we see immaturity and consumption marketed as freedom.
It isn’t just that we are frittering away our freedom by succumbing to the parental charms of dogma and backsliding into alien guidance. North Americans have also chosen and created some really shitty, insipid dogmas. Hectoring demagogues run the gamut from ham-fisted literalist Christians and talk-radio yapflappers and marketeering mammonists to paranoiac 9/11 conspiracy theorists and condescending vegans. There is also the healthism that every gym and diet product and lifestyle pill consecrates, that every smoking ban and anti-trans-fat law enshrines, a nannying that thrives cheek by jowl with rampant unhealth and obesity. And then there’s the less sweaty version of this me-centricity and its twee New Age variants: the self-helpist narcissism that keeps the publishing industry alive.
The freedom that North American leaders extol is largely content-free, and duty-free too. Once in a while we have topretend to remember the soldiers who died for it back in the day and send warm fuzzies to the ones dying for it now. Other than that, freedom-speak is a whole lotta “you can be whatever you want to be” hogwash, punctuated by orders to shop and to work.
We are not adults in the sense that Kant intended, but adolescents. This is a problem, because we are also the world’s most heavily armed teenagers. We have relentlessly extended the bounds of technical reason to the point that it has supplanted humane reason – the kind of thinking you find in history, literature, and philosophy. The problem is that technical reason is not Thought 2.0, an upgrade that replaces the buggy betas of ethics and history. Technical reason cannot replace humane reason. Rather, it demands great lashings of it. Comedian Patton Oswalt has a hilarious routine about a sixty-seven-year-old woman giving birth. At one point in his rant, he says that science is “all about the coulda, not the shoulda.” 20 He’s right. We’ve augmented our coulda powers in fantastic ways, but our capacity for thinking about the shoulda has shrivelled. Enter Glenn Beck and Dr. Phil to fill the void.
Jefferson was adamant that an educated populace was necessary to maintain the republic, and he wrote about the need for public schools where everyone could learn to read, write, reason, do math, and study history, as these were the basic skills required for self-governance. Without education and general knowledge, the people were all too susceptible to flattery, fear-mongering,
Encyclopédie
. Diderot, the mastermind behind this project, said “All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard to anyone’s feelings.” 19
Is this the case today? Sadly, no. A goodly chunk of media-speak and political rhetoric exists for the express purpose of provoking feelings rather than reasonable arguments about the facts. Then there are the forbidden facts, concealed in the interest of national and corporate security. Any number ofexaminations, debates, and investigations can never bubble up to the level of public attention lest they adversely affect some industry, leak strategically valuable information, spark litigation, or transgress one of our new articles of faith. And one of those new articles of faith, conveniently enough, is that we are the freest people in the world.
I saw an ad on TV not long ago that began and ended with the declaration “Free expression is what I’m all about,” a sentiment sure to meet with near-universal approval. But the product the ad was pushing was Botox, a poison that freezes your face into a stiff rictus that creepily approximates youth. Again – and in the most literal way – we see immaturity and consumption marketed as freedom.
It isn’t just that we are frittering away our freedom by succumbing to the parental charms of dogma and backsliding into alien guidance. North Americans have also chosen and created some really shitty, insipid dogmas. Hectoring demagogues run the gamut from ham-fisted literalist Christians and talk-radio yapflappers and marketeering mammonists to paranoiac 9/11 conspiracy theorists and condescending vegans. There is also the healthism that every gym and diet product and lifestyle pill consecrates, that every smoking ban and anti-trans-fat law enshrines, a nannying that thrives cheek by jowl with rampant unhealth and obesity. And then there’s the less sweaty version of this me-centricity and its twee New Age variants: the self-helpist narcissism that keeps the publishing industry alive.
The freedom that North American leaders extol is largely content-free, and duty-free too. Once in a while we have topretend to remember the soldiers who died for it back in the day and send warm fuzzies to the ones dying for it now. Other than that, freedom-speak is a whole lotta “you can be whatever you want to be” hogwash, punctuated by orders to shop and to work.
We are not adults in the sense that Kant intended, but adolescents. This is a problem, because we are also the world’s most heavily armed teenagers. We have relentlessly extended the bounds of technical reason to the point that it has supplanted humane reason – the kind of thinking you find in history, literature, and philosophy. The problem is that technical reason is not Thought 2.0, an upgrade that replaces the buggy betas of ethics and history. Technical reason cannot replace humane reason. Rather, it demands great lashings of it. Comedian Patton Oswalt has a hilarious routine about a sixty-seven-year-old woman giving birth. At one point in his rant, he says that science is “all about the coulda, not the shoulda.” 20 He’s right. We’ve augmented our coulda powers in fantastic ways, but our capacity for thinking about the shoulda has shrivelled. Enter Glenn Beck and Dr. Phil to fill the void.
Jefferson was adamant that an educated populace was necessary to maintain the republic, and he wrote about the need for public schools where everyone could learn to read, write, reason, do math, and study history, as these were the basic skills required for self-governance. Without education and general knowledge, the people were all too susceptible to flattery, fear-mongering,
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