Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Tuesday October 30, 2007

[ Philosophy ] Moral Compass and Information

We have a clear proof today that abundance and "free" flow of "news" and "information"—yes, much of it manufactured for nefarious purposes of one kind or another, and yet much of it potentially relevant—does not make a nation morally wise to understand simple facts like the plain immorality of bringing occupation, death and destruction to people thousands of miles away.

We also have a proof that, through manufactured fear, a nation can be aroused to a frenzy, easily disarmed of its simplest moral sense and compass and made to abandon its most fundamental social skill—placing oneself in the shoes of others.

No technology can inoculate a people against such a moral disease—a disease that can only be prevented and eradicated through "moral education," to borrow McMurray's phrase.

2007-10-30 04:48:02.0 -- Comments [5] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
information moral-sense reciprocity technology

Comments:

You started off by saying, "we have a clear proof today..." What exactly are you referring to, that happened today ?

Posted by JAF on October 30, 2007 at 05:13 PM PDT #

Here, "today" does not mean this very day but the present age we live in, the "now" that extends beyond any particular event that might have happened in this very second but which captures and embodies everything that went before it.

The "proof" is the world we're leaving in, "today," and in particular the States, where manufactured fear has been used to blunt a very large public's moral sense: http://blogs.sun.com/MortazaviBlog/entry/the_fear_machine"

Posted by M. Mortazavi on October 30, 2007 at 07:15 PM PDT #

Part of the problem is the evolution of the visual communication medium. Pairing an undated (or irrelevant) violent video clip with rhetoric can whip frenzy and impairs logic and compassion.

This problem is rearing its ugly head in India too. Most news channels are affiliated with political parties and are used as propaganda machinery with fake sting operations and "expert views".

Yesterday's dilbert is a precise illustration of how things work both on climate control and propaganda -

http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2002444471031.gif

Posted by Madhan Kumar on November 01, 2007 at 12:47 AM PDT #

Yes, Scott Adams knows all in a very subtle way :-) ...

Posted by M. Mortazavi on November 01, 2007 at 04:59 PM PDT #

Despite the bewildering number of "Americans" one sees abroad, US citizens are amazingly parochial in their views of the world. I firmly believe that one should have to hold a passport in order to register to vote in this country. We only seem to care about how world events effect us. When the subway in London was bombed the CNN headline was "What the London Tube bombing means for the US."

Posted by closets on November 03, 2007 at 01:30 PM PDT #