I must say that I am much more relaxed these days. My brain doesn’t seem to be constantly on overload based upon the latest story of chaos, corruption, or cronyism that seemed to emanate from the Trump White House on a daily basis. Living under the Republican regime here in Montana will certainly be challenging for the next four years but I will try to contain my commentary on that to the local newspaper although, some of that may, from time to time, spill over into this blog. But today as we move forward and we have a new administration that intends to be an administration of truth, trust and transparency, there is still the issue of millions of Americans who believe the election was ‘stolen’ from Trump. And adding to this problem are a number of media outlets that are continuing to pump out lies and misinformation.
I just don’t know how you convince people who are choosing to listen to inaccurate and misleading information and believe things in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For a long time in this country there was something called the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ that basically said radio and TV stations broadcasting over the air had to present both sides of an issue. The coverage had to be fair, as it were. The Fairness Doctrine was in effect from 1949 until the FCC under Ronald Reagan repealed it. There was an attempt to codify the Fairness Doctrine in to law at one time but that effort was vetoed by Reagan in 1987.
With the rise of Fox News and other very biased media organizations, there have been some calls to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. It is highly unlikely that will ever happen. Any attempts will get all wound around the axle because of First Amendment ‘free speech’ issues. In addition, there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court which is highly unlikely to uphold anything like the Fairness Doctrine due to those same First Amendment considerations. The reality is, we will be living in a world of media outlets that can and will continue to push conspiracy theories, propaganda, misinformation and sometimes out and out lies. How do we move ahead and strive for unity given this is the reality of the world we now occupy?
I was watching a podcast by Neal DeGrasse Tyson yesterday in which he was discussing the scientific method. To illustrate what he was talking about, he used examples of how the scientific method was used to solve questions about the perturbations in the orbits of Uranus, Mercury and Neptune. After I got done listening to his talk, for some reason, I got to thinking about the Flat Earth Society. I kept asking myself, “How do people belong to and believe in the Flat Earth Society in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary?” It’s the same phenomena as to why people believe political conspiracy theories.
I decided to visit the website of the Flat Earth Society and do a little poking around. I did learn a new word – “zeteticism.” This is defined as a method of scientific inquiry. “Zeteticism differs from the usual scientific method in that using zeteticism one bases his conclusions on experimentation and observation rather than on an initial theory that is to be proved or disproved.”1 Zeteticism is apparently one of the basic tenets of the Flat Earth Society.
“For example, in questioning the shape of the Earth the zetetic does not make a hypothesis suggesting that the Earth is round or flat and then proceed testing that hypothesis; he skips that step and devises an experiment that will determine the shape of the Earth, and bases his conclusion on the result of that experiment. Many feel this is a more reasonable method than the normal scientific method because it removes any preconceived notions and biases the formation of a hypothesis might cause, and leaves the conclusion up entirely to what is observed.”1
I think the key words are in the last sentence where it says, “leaves the conclusion up entirely to what is observed.” The way I read this, if I am standing on my deck and looking out in all directions, the earth appears flat [topography is something different] therefore the earth must be flat. There is really no need for me to pursue this any further because my observations are all I need in order to understand the ‘truth.’ In a similar manner, if the news channel that I choose to watch broadcasts unfounded conspiracy theories, I needn’t look into it any further because my observations tell me all I need to know.
There is overwhelming evidence that the earth is not flat. There is overwhelming evidence that the election was not ‘stolen’, was conducted fairly and there is not wide-spread voter fraud anywhere. I guess the zetetics amongst us don’t care what the evidence says. I wish we lived in a world where rational civil discourse and science-based policy making were the norm. Unfortunately, conspiracy spewing broadcasters, zetetic ‘flat earthers’ and science deniers will be with us for the foreseeable future. These are kind of like termites attacking a house. You often don’t understand how bad the damage is until it is too late. And since we can’t call the local pest control agent to deal with the problem, we will just have to be vigilant and try to build a society that will stand up to the attacks.
Your article is a very good description of how MAGA people think. Rupert Murdoch must have studied Zeteticism when he came up with his magazine” The National Enquirer”.