OK, I haven’t thought this topic the whole way through, but after listening to this This American Life episode (recommended by Reid), I have this thought to share with the assembled:

The advent of the Internet and the globalization of the attendant technology does not contribute to a more-informed populace. In fact, it ghettoizes information to a point where the population is less exposed to a diversity of viewpoints, not encouraging critical thinking, but depressing it.

For example, looking at my blogroll, there used to be, but are no longer, websites which espouse different, even contrary viewpoints to my own. I fought a losing battle with myself to keep them on, and I feel a intellectually poorer person for it. I don’t take a local paper (which would be the Gannett-run Indianapolis Star), a regional paper (the Chicago Tribune), or a national paper (the NYT or the WSJ). I just click on stories and web sites that are generally in accord with my present point of view, and in so doing, hardening my positions to a point where any discussion of a view not congruent with my own sends me over the edge (or I reach the edge much more quickly than it used to). I live in a gated community of the mind.

I am enough of an intellectual to be very unnerved at this, where someone leading a less-examined life might feel safe in the knowledge that they don’t have to think much about it any more, that their own opinions are good enough for them. I cannot watch more than 30 seconds of Fox News any more than my neighbors can listen to Bill Moyers. And so, we don’t, because we don’t have to.

As Lemming has said (to paraphrase), “The 50’s begat the 60’s,” and so I try to take the long view that in 10 years, I’ll trust the government to do the right thing, the wrong thing, or at least an inept thing rather than something I consider evil. There have been three two-term presidents since 1980. Why, when we have access to more and better and quicker information, is the pace of change in our presidents slowing? We gerrymander the congressional maps to where 95% of districts are “safe” for one party or another. Does that serve us well?

OK, I’m starting to go off message. Give me a few minutes to breathe. I’m not a Luddite, I don’t want to smash the internet, but I hate what it’s doing to the national conversation. And, no, I don’t know what this post’s title means. It sounded good at the time.