News You Can Use?
The other day, I came across yet another great link at Towleroad. (Thanks, Andy.) It took me to a powerfully stark video that raised a serious question. Unlike so many questions bouncing about the body politic, this one doesn't involve natural or impersonal forces that are beyond my control, and I find that to be a refreshing change. While I worry about that we may have wrecked the environment in some catastrophic way - the Gulf Stream does appear to be in real danger of breaking down - there's not much that I can do about it, and as I'm already one of the relatively few Americans (if one of the many New Yorkers) who doesn't have anything to do with cars that aren't taxis, I give myself a pass on the matter, and wait for the rest of the world to catch up. And as for worrying about what's going on in Washington - ! The video to which I am about to refer you, however, is different. It is all up to you.
Watch the video. Then come back.
¶ In 2014, will The New York Times go offline in protest?
Let's assume that, as a reader of the Daily Blague, you're going to be an elderly or elite consumer of newsprint in 2014, with all that that entails about your critical judgment and deep perspective you're cool. But are you safe? Will you be functionally elite, in a "democracy" that swarms with ill-informed bigots who know very little about what lies beyond their everyday experience? No, you won't. You'll be marginalized at best, persecuted at worst. I myself doubt that a carefully-calibrated government of checks and balances can operate in a world where most people believe that, because democracy means that nobody can make you do what you don't want to do, it's perfectly all right to do anything that you do want to do.
It has always been understood that democracy requires an educated citizenry. But the idea of education, like every other idea, changes over time. I don't think that we know what general education means nowadays. EPIC 2014 suggests that we'd better find out, and fast.
