Media hinder clueless Americans

Wednesday, February 10, 1999

Media hinder clueless Americans

IGNORANCE: Mainstream underestimates people’s intellect, but we
accept it

It can be hard finding free time when busy writing columns and
otherwise putzing around. I should learn something about time
management. If I manage my time (and make numerous personal
improvements), I should be able to date more, so I should probably
learn something about dating. One can only assume that if my dating
skills are fine-tuned, soon I shall need to start learning about
weddings and parenting. Then it will be just a matter of time
before I need to learn about divorce. Eventually I shall reach my
twilight years, so to prepare I should learn something about
fishing and golf.

So, if you have been counting, you should see that there are
seven different topics I need to study in order to make it through
life. With some luck, however, I can get all the necessary
preparation materials in the same section of the bookstore.

All of these topics are covered by "Dummies" books. You know the
ones: the yellow paperbacks featuring that little cartoon guy with
that terrible haircut. This series may be best known for providing
simple, step-by-step instructions on a number of computer-related
topics, but they have certainly expanded. You can find "Red Wine
for Dummies" (grape juice?), as well as "Investing for Dummies"
(buy high, sell low?).

They print "Cocktail Parties for Dummies" and "Sex for Dummies"
(personally, I try not to invite dummies to my parties, nor do I
sleep with them, but I have always been a little weird).

If you need some advice, and you happen to be a dummy, you are
in good shape.

There are certainly times when an extremely simple explanation
is necessary, so I do not find the existence of these books too
troubling.

Still, I have some problems with this series. It is very
popular; too popular. There are well over 100 titles, some in
multiple editions. Are there really enough dummies to go around?
The publishers think so; they tout these books as guides "for the
rest of us."

I do not like the sound of this. It suggests a culture in which
a tiny elite understands the arcana of such things as red wine,
fishing and the Mac OS, while the lowly proles are kept away from
such chthonic, hieratic details. They must stare, mouths agape, at
the pretty books explaining everything in simple sentences of
monosyllabic words. I do grant that this description is not quite
apt. The troubling phrase is probably a holdover from an old
Macintosh ad (from those pre-Windows days of befuddling operating
systems), and there is something catchy to it. The message,
however, is unsettling: it is OK to be clueless.

There seems to be no need to look further than this campus for
examples. I often see disturbing signs of ignorance in my own
students, but it is as I overhear the various conversations bounced
off me that I find the real disappointment.

Most UCLA students seem keen on acquiring knowledge as long as
it leads them to particular goals (usually material), but all other
knowledge seems pointless, so ignorance is happily accepted.

One can see how ignorance has saturated this university merely
by examining this newspaper.

You see, some of us are not shy to encounter unfamiliar words. I
try to keep lists of strange words. The words may later become
useful ("chthonic," "hieratic"), while others may never cross my
path again ("fustian," "lordosis").

While I accept that most Bruins do not have the same level of
interest, the editors of this paper seem too keen to keep it that
way. A recent piece of mine was meant to feature the words
"cineastes" and "scopophilic," but neither made it through the
editing process. The words were struck down as "too hard," although
both are perfectly cromulent.

This is not the whole story on the paper. Last year "The Bruin"
closed the door on thought and creativity. It actually ran an
article giving an overly detailed template for potential columnists
to generate their own mindless, unoriginal pieces by just adding a
few words (Nov. 25, "How to write an effective opinion piece" by
Patrick Friel). Where is the challenge in that?

What I say about this paper is just meant to illustrate a point
about the school, and what I say for the school could go for most
of the country. The embrace of ignorance is a cultural trend, and
UCLA students are often at the forefront of such cultural
trends.

The mainstream media should challenge, lead and provoke, but
often they back down from this challenge. Instead, they would
rather generalize, bowdlerize and color-code our information.
Schools could be exemplars of intellectual challenge at the
earliest stages, but instead they routinely "dumb down" their
curricula.

Comfort with rising ignorance levels is not an isolated trend.
For a variety of factors (I dare not go into them here), people are
increasingly unlikely to see themselves as seriously flawed.
Ignorance could pose a problem to sky-high self-esteem, so it is
downplayed. If you do not know something, you ask if it is germane.
If it is not, then you are entitled to remain oblivious. Anyone who
does has such knowledge is suspect.

I once mentioned a (not very obscure) musical term, erroneously
assuming that the person with whom I spoke was familiar with it.
Her unfamiliarity with the term was perfectly acceptable, but the
response was not. She asked how anyone who did not play an
instrument could know such a thing, and her tone spoke volumes.

She declared that she should not know such a thing, and it was
insulting for me to make such alien references. I have no reason to
believe that her reaction was unique.

I am deeply frightened by our growing ignorance, but I do
recognize that it is, in ways, inevitable. We live an a world with
an exponentially growing population, and computers both create and
convey information in ways hardly imaginable 25 years ago. Gone are
the days when a figure like Aristotle or Albertus Magnus could
become an expert in most fields of learning. Today’s polymaths are
little more than glorified dilettantes.

One can learn a lot about something or a little about
everything, but that is the best that can be achieved. One must
remain basically ignorant, and it is foolish to deny this. Still,
there is a vast difference between an unhappy, calculated
acceptance of ignorance and a wholehearted embrace of ignorance.
Our world is enjoying such an embrace.

We can still get out there and learn some things. It may not be
wise to go chasing around "useless" facts, but we should not shy
away from what is not obviously relevant (after all, it is only in
retrospect that one knows what was truly relevant). I do want to
learn about those topics I listed at first (except, of course, for
golf), but I want to approach them as a true human, not as a
dummy.

Should the material of any realm overwhelm me, I shall throw in
the towel and accept my ignorant status. Until then, though, I
should fight, and so should everyone else. Ignorance is not
bliss.

Patrick Friel

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