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How would Lawrence Lessig feel about this article? Lessig obviously believes that the U.S. political parties' activities are consequential to everyone's lives.
by detcader 12y ago
How would Lawrence Lessig feel about this article? Lessig obviously believes that the U.S. political parties' activities are consequential to everyone's lives.
Aaron seems to reject the notion of the implicit involvement, in a democracy, of every citizen in the affairs of their government. We supposedly elect (a significant portion of) the government, we pay for its activities, so we should care about what it has done and continues to do in Iraq. Virtually every extremist who has attacked the U.S. and lived to be captured and give statements in trial has cited U.S. foreign policy as a chief motivation for their actions. This alone should have us caring about U.S. foreign policy.
I agree that news covers too many topics to report on any of them consistently well (or guard against interested parties shaping the news into propaganda). I think there's a Poe's-Law-type meme about that.
- emerod 12y agoThe notion of implicit involvement is a PR strategy for legitimizing a government. If a majority of the population do not feel implicitly involved, they will not care if the government is overthrown.
- DubiousPusher 12y agoI don't think Shwartz was advocating a position of ignorance regarding geopolitical affairs. Just read a book or an essay on important geopolitical topics instead. If you want to know what important legislation is being advanced go to town halls, visit .gov sites, make an activist friend. All those are better ways to find out what's going on than the news. I stopped following the news, other than this site, after years of dedicated reading/viewing. I'd become disgusted with the amount of time that's dedicated to manufactured scandal, fained outrage and disemination of non-facts. I'm happier now and actually feel better informed. Sure, if I want to know about something I'll hit a major news site from time to time but honestly the longer I go without digging through the daily news pile for information gold, the more it just looks like a midden concealing a few soggy turds.
- detcader 12y agoI know what you mean; after all, I don't consume the mainstream news, besides occasionally Democracy Now, which I mostly value for the interviews.