One of the most pressing questions before us is whether or not we can attain enough factual information to determine the truth about the pressing issues we’re facing.
In the Information Age, that question should be a slam dunk, but it’s not.
Despite having greater access to the accumulated knowledge of the ages than any other time in human history, there’s still a lot of falsehood and unsupported opinion that can mislead us.
Once upon a time, our newspapers and other media were owned by people who lived in the communities they served.
The advertising revenue that supported them came from business owners within their communities.
Today, the vast majority of our mass media is owned by a handful of absentee corporations.
And many of their major advertisers are owned by large corporations as well.
Keeping a job in such circumstances often means that truth comes in a distant second to keeping the owners happy.
Why should this matter to us?
Because self-government only works when people have access to the truth.
Otherwise they are being controlled or steered rather than being informed.
This doesn’t mean that we should lose hope and give up on our independence.
It means that we’d likely be better served by reading great books than by spending our time sorting half truths on media or the internet.
Being lied to or propagandized can only happen when we take the path of least resistance to understanding the world around us.
Why Truth Can Be So Elusive