Perspective

Caution: Soapbox Posting

Since I have the time now, I spend a little more time in the morning reading newspapers and some magazines (online and print), and watching television news in the evenings. I've always understood that commercial news sources survive by highlighting what in statistical terms are called outliers, soliciting an emotional response from consumers by suggesting these extreme events could soon be coming to their neighborhood. That's how they attract attention to their advertising, which is how they make a living.

What strikes me, however, is how it also distorts perspective, especially when mixed with ignorance of, and disinterest in, cause. An example of one measure of that ignorance came across in data released by the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nations report card. It shows that less than 12% of high school graduates have a working knowledge of history.

An eye-opening audio-visual representation of this historical ignorance came by way of a video included in the short article that shared the view that "American Students Don't Know History." In the video, a concerned mother/teacher/daughter of a Holocaust survivor interviewed college students about their knowledge of the Holocaust and WWII. I've attached that 14 minute video at the bottom of this post. You can skip through the first two minutes to get to answers from what are otherwise probably fairly bright and articulate college students.

Whatever the issue being captured by the media, the participants in any discussion or charged with characterizing an issue or event seem to have little interest in objectively identifying the cause. All attention is on the symptom, also known as the "effect" in cause and effect analysis. What passes as analysis is speculation and solution postulation, with little or no causal perspective from which to critically evaluate the issue.

All that leads me to become even more skeptical and cynical when I hear and see events described or commentated - from both (or all) sides. The din of irrelevant B.S. overwhelms my capacity for objectively understanding the position or hypothesis. I fear the leaders of today or tomorrow will be similarly affected, leaving us with only a series of random experiments destined to repeat the failures of history.