Or, so much noise, so little signal. Like listening to a short-wave radio.
I will start with two stories. The first one is quite benign; the second, not.
Silverfish
Books has always had a section on philosophy, theology and metaphysics;
not quite the 'idiot's' guide to religion, but something more
thought-provoking. Two lovely young women came up the stairs once, to
show us some books by a religious group (some would call them a cult)
that I had heard of, and to ask us if we would stock them. "Sure," we
said, and told them our terms. Their next question was, "Where will you
shelf them?" "We have a few shelves for religion," we explained,
whereupon, they said that theirs was not a religion but a way of life.
So, big mouth, me, asked, "Do you know of any religion in the world that
claims not to be a way of life?" They were politely offended, stunned
and silenced. They withdrew quietly, taking their books with them,
sticking to their beliefs, even if it meant not disseminating the
'word'.
The
second incident happened when I was in the university. I stayed in a
hostel with five blocks, mine quite creatively called E-Block. There was
the usual inter-block rivalry over all sorts things like sports, like
who could shout the loudest, who could piss the furthest (it was a
mostly men's hostel), fart the most times, and so on. We would often
tease visitors from the other blocks and greet them with water filled
balloons, often missing on purpose, but getting a great laugh from it.
Then one night, it turned ugly. It started with some E-blockers hooting
at a group of visitors from another block who had come to work on a
tutorial with some friends. It then progressed to shouting, name
calling, object throwing, chasing with sticks and ending in fisticuffs. I
watched in horror, shock and confusion; they were all my friends!
I
remember the kindergarten wisdom: united we stand, divided we fall.
Rubbish: as individuals, we stand; united, we are a mob, bullies.
William Golding got it spot on in the Lord of the Flies,
the story of a group of British boys stuck on an uninhabited island
after a plane crash, who try to govern themselves with disastrous
results.
There was an interesting story in The New Yorker on-line by Maria Konnikova recently, I Don’t Want to Be Right,
about a study by Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science at
Dartmouth on parental attitudes toward vaccination and other subjects,
and how it is almost impossible to change a perception, once formed; and
how ineffective factual correction is . The story says: 'Nyhan’s
interest in false beliefs dates back to early 2000, when he was a senior
at Swarthmore. It was the middle of a messy presidential campaign, and
he was studying the intricacies of political science and came to the
conclusion that “The 2000 (US presidential) campaign was something of a
fact-free zone ...” It appears it’s almost impossible to get people to
change a belief or attitude, even when they are way off the truth.
In
the first story, I guess no amount of logic would have changed the
belief of the two women that theirs is the only 'way of life' that
existed. The second is stranger because there was no belief system
involved except maybe superiority. Curiously, they still get together
every year and behave like they did when they were students in campus.
Arrested development? Superiority complex? Beats me. Another friend,
Ikram, who also attended the 30th anniversary bash with me, dropped in
to Silverfish a few days after the event and said, "Shall we do that
again in another 30 years?" I laughed. It was my sentiment exactly.
Running
a bookshop like Silverfish is fraught with danger, given the
quasi-intellectual nature we appear to project. We love the free
exchange of ideas (many ambassadors visit us for that reason), but when
some people insist that we should agree with them no matter what, it
becomes difficult to say the least. They don't understand, that while we
may call a spade a spade, we are not always interested in taking sides;
that even if we do chose a side, facts remain unaltered. It became
really bad during the run-up to GE13, and no amount of factual
correction made a difference. Unfortunately, even a whole year after
GE13, it still hasn't stopped, and this will probably continue to GE14.
Another
quote from the story: "In a study, Kelly Garrett and Brian Weeks looked
to see if political misinformation ... that was corrected immediately
would be any less resilient than information that was allowed to go
uncontested for a while. At first, it appeared as though the correction
did cause some people to change their false beliefs. But, when the
researchers took a closer look, they found that the only people who had
changed their views were those who were ideologically predisposed to
disbelieve the fact in question. If someone held a contrary attitude,
the correction not only didn’t work—it made the subject more distrustful
..."
"Shouting,
shouting, shouting," says good friend and academic, Sumit Mandal, of
Malaysian politics. The less you have to say, the louder you shout it.
Which
brings us to another quote from the story: "False beliefs, it turns
out, have little to do with one’s stated political affiliations and far
more to do with self-identity: What kind of person am I, and what kind
of person do I want to be? All ideologies are similarly affected."
In
other words, you may shout as much as you want, but people are not
dumb; they know what they want. They are watching you. Or, is
that merely wishful thinking?
What lousy timing: I was in
the USA when Obama was traipsing through our backyard. I kept up
with what was going on by reading online, with the local
newspapers seemingly uninterested in the goings of a small third
world country of no consequence. Where are you from? Malaysia ...
you know, where that plane disappeared? Oh yes, of course. I
remember the plane, but I forget the name of the country. Oh, well.
Finally, on April 28, there was a photograph of Obama and a bunch of
excited teenagers on page A6 of the NYT with a report on the visit 
