We think our best decisions are made rationally, with information from as many credible sources as we can find. We make tradeoffs based on the importance of competing considerations and make the best optimized solution there is.
Are we more persuaded by a skillful and engaging writer versus someone who is less gifted but have more important facts in their argument?
Do political cartoons, bold posters, and memorable slogans, endear to or repulse us from certain positions?
Propaganda that is crafty enough to appeal to our subconscious insecurities and prejudices make us uncomfortable without knowing exactly why. Our "gut reaction" is to make the safer decision.
Spreadsheets do not always promote the best decisions.
The answer is of course to have both rationality and compassion in our decision making. But how much of each and in what way?
Then there is the danger of the medium taking over the message.
Canadians lament that the movie "Argo" about the rescue of American hostages hiding in the Canadian embassy in Iran, based on the true stories with actual news clips in the end to give it an authentic feel, never the less did not represent the true risks the Canadian embassy took in accepting the hostages.
Even the then Canadian ambassador acknowledged that the movie deserve the Oscar but not a true representation. The movie makers had to invent some chase scenes to make the movie more engaging. So how is an audience to know which part is real and which is not?
It is also inevitable of the arts circle to concentrate on their values, lives, and pursuits. It should be no surprise that Hollywood is much better at promoting themselves through awards like the Oscar event. Is our current adulation over celebrities in entertainment and sports rather than science the result?
Can or should something be done?
POP Culture is the doom of Western Society. Oh wait, the East too with its "Bollywood."
ReplyDeleteFor more insightful movies foreign flicks sometimes are good. Of course then I have to read the subtitles. I sometimes like action flicks 'cause they take the hollywood obsurdity to the max, its kindof insightful that way.
As for science, we have the knowledge and don't use it. Knowledge is only as good as the person who is using it; right? But its gotta be palatable to this "pop" culture, which only progresses so it can "fit" or "do" what's necessary for this global society. Knowledge has to make sense to be useful...there's lots that doesn't make sense to me, too.
Um, sorry, if I sound so pessimistic. To help the environment I ride around on a bicycle. Shop locally (when I can).
Artists and Scientists don't usually hang in the same circles. Except sometimes, and then good things happen. At least I like to think so.
vts
I don't know why it only dawn on my recently that a good message requires good content as well as delivery. The arts are good in delivering and sometimes picking the content.
DeleteHowever, when the sciences are such a mystery to the arts, it is seldom that the sciences get the spot light so well handled by the arts.
We, as the audience, have to somehow adjust for it to get the proper overall picture.
The good thing is that the internet is democratizing the news and knowledge business. We just have to take an active role in searching rather than let the message come to us.
Cormac McCarthy ( writer - The Road) belongs to a think tank in Arizona which includes scientists as well as professionals in the arts. Ian McEwen in Solar ties together the interelationship and interdependence of the Arts and Sciences. There exists an interesting interview with him discussing this idea of one polar discipline augmenting and enriching its opposite discipline.
ReplyDeleteIdeally Form and Content are equal and indivisible, however skilfully represented ideas can be seductive, even if the concepts portrayed may be lacking in sense, ethical considerations and social usefulness. Witness the seductively clever manipulation of Form by Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels in "selling" the unpalatable Nazi philosophy. And why are so many social scientists and psychologists employed in refining knowledge of the human psyche so that may be better subverted for political or economic gain? I don't think it is enough to "Know", one must also ground one's information in "compassion" as you put it Oliver.
I can't make the cafe, but am delighted to find you engaging us in these topic.
Thanks for the comment.
DeleteIt is difficult to "know" without somehow coloring it with some of our biases from previous knowledge and experience.
It is inevitable that the message is biased when passed through a third party no matter how well intended that party is.
The arts, in skilfully highlighting and presenting the content, further implicate itself in introducing biases.
Which historian should we read to know our past when it is often what they don't say that matters as much or more than what they say?
A list of historical events maybe more factual, but would we understand it without getting a feel of the times then and who can give that to us without bias?