The specter of debate about health care reform has significant social ramifications.  Much has been said about the lack of civility in the August discussions, especially in town hall meetings, about proposed health care reforms.  Rather than engaging in debate, spectators at town hall meetings have been shouting down their representatives, especially if the latter support some form of health care reform. cable television commentators have enjoyed the ruckus, to use President Obama’s phrase, which is obviously quite good for ratings.  There has been much talk about mis-information, and some disdain, but not enough in my view, to folks who feel compelled to bring firearms to these public meetings.  we have heard of old folks who received Medicare, a government program, who are against goverment-run health care, not to mention the famous death panels, claims of Nazism and social movements paid for by healthcare interests and those who want to derail President Obama’s agenda.  From CNN we get the hyperbolic: “August, the make or break month for health care.”

This hype goes on and on, but it pushes into the background a more serious issue–that of the valorization of ignorance in contemporary American culture. There is such incendiary pablum on the airwave, pablum that is taken as “tribal truth,” which, even if it is patently false, is still maintained. Such a sad process makes me think that a portion of our population has been drugged with less than half-truths.  The same process underscores just how ill-informed our population has become.  If my students are indicative–and they are a tad more curious than most of their fellow citizens–then we’ve become a nation of people who lack curiosity about the world, who find thinking to be painful, who don’t take time to read or, God-forbid, have a critical reflection about the world around them.  When I read that only a small percentage of Americans have passports and that a surprising percentage of our fellow citizens have never been outside the US and have little interest in traveling to other countries and knowing a tad more about the world, it reinforces my impression, reinforced by many of undergraduate students, that we suffer from a tragic parochialism, which, in itself, is a sign of social decline.  

I worry about the future and hope that my pessimistic assessment of our culture of ignorance will be proven wrong.  Time will tell.