Been thinking a lot about the Reagan quote about those who know so much that isn’t so. A lot of higher education has abandoned teaching students how to think and instead focuses on telling them what to believe. Those students are then unprepared to have their beliefs challenged. I refer to this as the John Oliver-ization of education. The easy solution for those same students is then to seek out sources that just reinforce those beliefs. I mention Oliver because his show is a perfect encapsulation of this approach. If you don’t know anything about a subject, then an Oliver segment on it will tell you that the issue is simple and exactly what conclusion any reasonable person should reach about it. He will add in a few jokes throughout mocking anyone who believes anything else to make it easier to digest. It’s very comforting for those that already are predisposed to adopt the same conclusions. However, anyone who actually has even an intermediate knowledge of those same subject will quickly recognize these segments are full of outright falsehoods and half-truths aimed at pushing specific conclusions while ignoring anything that may contradict those views. The result is that Oliver’s audience is left thinking they understand an issue while actively being completely misinformed about it. That’s exactly why students now have access to more information than ever before, but are generally still ignorant about so much.
See Tweet