Politics lost in a bottomless sea of ‘facts’

In the early 1990s, the nascent internet was touted as an information superhighway, a swift digital pathway to any and all knowledge on a scale and at a pace never before imagined.

Some described it as a gigantic, spaghetti-like swirl of interstate on-ramps and off-ramps with well-marked routes leading us to information which, being in original sources, could be believed.

“That widely accepted metaphor of the information future,” I wrote in 1994, “is disarmingly comforting, for it implies a universe in which routes are clearly marked, directions are two dimensional, and destinations are obtainable if only we follow the map properly from Point A to Point B. It is a technocrat's vision of people zipping confidently along … to predetermined places” where credible information is available.

That’s not how it turned out.

Again, from 1994, “Suppose, as seems more likely, the information future turns out to be an ocean; a broad, deep mass of molecular ‘facts’ supplied by countless independent and unaccountable tributaries.

“It is suddenly three dimensional, not two, and it is dark and cold at the bottom. The molecules of information that comprise it mingle together in a brew that is undrinkable when undiluted. It has currents not detectable to the unwary eye … no signposts and topography to provide safe navigation.…

“How, in that muddled tracklessness, can the critical mass of shared information necessary to public life be assembled? … Can communities be formed consisting of citizens able to act in democratic concert? … The questions are plump with implications for conscientious citizens and for journalists.”

And, 24 years later, they still are. Deeply divided by partisan fervor, we routinely use such terms as “post truth era,” “alternative facts,” “fake news,” and I write about how “The Truth Fallacy” inevitably leads to civic suicide.

Our public life, our political processes, are drowning in that ocean of unmoderated information, and many of the traditional institutions that long have supported a healthy public life, including journalism, are struggling just to stay relevant, much less attempt to rescue it.

People have a fundamental need for shared reality, but we also have an aversion to truths that do not easily blend into our individual beliefs and knowledge. Such truths make us uncomfortable because we fear they will disrupt our group’s shared reality.

Shared reality is also an essential ingredient of self-government. One of the historic roles of journalism has been to add perspective, context and cohesion to information — that is, to make it useful. But for our society to take advantage of that usefulness requires a community of conscientious citizens open to ideas that run counter to their instincts. That’s what gives the deliberative conversations of democracy power and potential.

Had many of those lately? Can you remember your last comfortable political conversation with someone of opposing ideology? Do you get your news from a single source, from only one side of the ideological divide?

By most accounts, whether anecdotal ones or statistically reliable ones, Americans are increasingly tuning out opposing viewpoints or, in many cases, tuning out all news.

That is not a healthy or wise environment for self-government.

A contributing factor to that troubling dynamic is that cable television and the digital revolution drastically altered the shape, size and tenor of American journalism in ways both helpful and unhelpful.

More about that later.

This story was originally published February 6, 2018 at 4:16 AM with the headline "Politics lost in a bottomless sea of ‘facts’."