Assault on Reason

I've spent 36 hours in Cambridge watching the Al Gore roadshow as he debated climate change and explained his "Inconvenient Truth" presentation to an invited group from business, politics, NGOs and the media. I'll post on the Global Warming aspects when I've thought about them a bit more. But I was struck by the former VPs strong views on media. They are not new - he outlined them at the New York WeMedia conference in 2005 and also at the launch of his movie. He has a book coming out shortly - The Assault on Reason - which will expand further. The subtitle -How the Politics of Blind Faith Subvert Wise Decision-making - gives you the drift. Applied to the media it's an argument against politicisation and in favour of rational, evidence-based reporting. A defence of Enlightenment values. To that extent, something I believe in myself...

But Gore goes further and makes it a moral issue, quoting Scott Peck saying Evil is the absence of truth "so reporting something you know not to be true is evil"...and retelling the story of the German philosopher after the end of the second world war who studied how the Third Reich had taken power and concluded the" first significant symptom of their descent into hell was this: ‘All questions of fact became questions of power’..."

He then made a passing reference to Adam Curtis's documentary, The Century of Self charting the rise of PR as the beginning of a move away from rational argument into journalism more concerned with emotional engagement and entertainment values.

All this in parenthesis to his main subject. It was, he said, our "moral duty to live in truth". He was as passionate about this as he was about the climate. I wouldn't want to be a young producer on his network, Current TV, cheating an edit...

(NB He also paraphrased Bobby Kennedy's speech about the value of the GDP when arguing that consumerism wasn't any measure of quality of life. I wonder if anyone else spotted it!)

Comments

[sushil_yadav]

In response to your post on Al Gore, Consumerism, "Century of Self" and "Happiness/Quality of Life" I want to post a part from my article which examines the impact of speed, overstimulation, consumerism and industrialization on our minds and environment. Please read.

*The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.*

The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

*Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.*

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.

Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

Emotion ends.

Man becomes machine.

A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

Fast visuals/ words make slow emotions extinct.

Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys emotional circuits.

A fast (large) society cannot feel pain / remorse / empathy.

A fast (large) society will always be cruel to Animals/ Trees/ Air/ Water/ Land and to Itself.

To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6

http://www.theholisticwheel.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=324

sushil_yadav

[Mike Mullane]

The Italian journalist Marco Travaglio touches on many of these themes in "The Disappearance of Facts". I hope it is translated so that it becomes available to a wider public.