“Living is easy with your closed.”
-John Lennon
With a level of connection that is unprecedented for any other time in history, I think it is incredible how easy it is to accept something as a fact when one source claims it to be true. Today it seems that truth has become somewhat subjective. Depending on who pays for a study to be done, almost any result can be obtained. On all sides of the political spectrum, Americans seem to believe the first headline that they read without much evidence. It goes directly along with the division in the nation and a drive towards tribe politics.
I have seen many political conversations when one person is simply unwilling to even hear a viewpoint that opposes their own, while at the same time they use facts and studies that are not necessarily backed up or conducted to display accurate results. A person can find almost any result he wants if he searches long enough. As an example, I have included two separate studies that assert that the gender wage gap is either real or made up.
Click to access be_gendergap.pdf
While the two articles use many similar statistics and ideas, the Pew article uses only statistics and the Harvard article takes a deeper look at the statistics. Either article may be correct, but I do not believe that enough Americans research the information behind what they believe in. People with very strong political opinions will sometimes cherry-pick a headline and use that as evidence without backing up what they believe. I don’t think that is any problem within this group of students, but I do believe it plagues much of our society because it is so much easier to believe in something that agrees with your mindset.
I am not one to align myself with only democrat or republican; however, I will find myself trusting a headline from time to time simply because I want it to be true. After, I often find out that what I wanted to believe is not true or that it simply does not represent the entire picture. It’s not nice to know that you were supporting a misleading idea, but it does provide motivation to more deeply analyze the stories you see on the news and see if you agree with how the studies were performed and whether you believe the conclusions are valid or not.
In a world that is more connected than ever before we have no excuse not to research things that we are passionate about. With all the tools we need to make coherent arguments we should continue to hold each other to a higher standard by having a willingness to admit we are wrong or support our position with facts id we believe we are correct. Even though this sounds simple, we also have to be able to understand that some issues, such as those that deal with morals, do not have one definitive right answer and that we must be able to try to respect and understand others’ opinions.
This blog was inspired by the recent democratic debate.
Follow Us!