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From tracing ancestry or writing history to indicting thirteen Russians for interference in U.S. elections, it all begins with gathering and evaluating evidence. Friday’s meticulous indictment details the suspects’ use of social media fraud to sow discord and spread distrust. However this plays out, no one can promise it won’t happen again. Care in gathering and evaluating evidence can make us less vulnerable.
Check your sources. You can only do so much to distinguish fake news from real, but how many even try? It doesn’t take long for a social media post to go viral. I can’t count the posts I’ve seen shared by at least four or five contacts before the first comment by someone who’s checked it against Snopes.com or noticed it’s from The Onion. Monitor your confirmation bias. There’s a well-documented human tendency to believe what’s consistent with our pre-existing beliefs and dismiss what conflicts with them. If I tried to reexamine every issue every time it arose, I’d never get through the day. But remember that matching our expectations doesn’t always make things true. If the subversives weren’t playing to your biases this time around, the next ones might. Look outside your box. One of the Russians’ strategies was to weaken the U.S. by increasing polarization. We can resist by refusing to play. We can read or watch media that doesn’t tilt to our side, listen to people with different life experiences, and be open to the possibility of common ground. It might not only make our nation less vulnerable but also make us better neighbors, historians, or writers.
20 Comments
Lisa
2/19/2018 09:10:51 am
Alas, I think it's only going to get worse in terms of effect and citizen apathy.
It would be interesting to see it from the poll worker side. Good for you for doing that! Voting in Windsor, I found people from the old farm families were much more consistent in voting regularly, as an accepted civic duty, than the newcomers to the area, even when nothing local was on the ballot.
Geoff
2/21/2018 05:16:00 pm
Excellent insights, Sarah. I struggle with my confirmation bias every day.
Lisa
2/21/2018 05:25:21 pm
It wasn't a slow day at the polls at all. We had a good turnout. RE Newcomers: we registered five new voters yesterday, all young; two newcomers, and one returning from college and moving back to the township with his girlfriend. Not sure about the fifth.
Lisa
2/23/2018 09:19:02 am
Well, That is a complex topic. Not everyone in your class took in or retained the same amount of information as you did on good research skills. Speaking just of genealogists, there are a lot of people who use VERY poor research skills. Abysmal. I always think I learned research skills in college, not high school. I think young people, little kids, may be exposed to this, because early childhood education is so different now. But only time will tell if this teaching was effective. And even if it is, well, it's going to be decades before it has an effect. It takes time to research, and one ("one" of ANY age) is only going to take the time if they care, and no one cares because of that confirmation bias. So here we are right back at the beginning...
Geoff
2/23/2018 11:41:30 am
Hi, Lisa. I'd say that part of the problem is a lack of the curiosity that leads people to do research in the first place. In adult male culture, curiosity isn't valued because it implies that you aren't an expert in everything.
Lisa
2/23/2018 12:12:55 pm
Hi Geoff! You've just completely twisted my mind, in a wonderful way! Yes, I agree it can often come down to curiosity. But it takes a lot of time and effort to allow or follow curiosity. There is also an issue of trust in this topic. So, we lived through the Vietnam war era, and learned not to trust. Do you think curious, cynical people research more, or better?
Wow, I love the directions this is going! Curiosity, trust, adult male culture. On the latter, it reminds me of the generalization (like most, only partly true) that men don't like to ask directions. One such man blew me away by saying the reason he didn't like to ask directions from a man, besides that it would show his ignorance, was that he wouldn't trust the answer because the other man might make up something in preference to admitting that he didn't know the answer. So, another tie between curiosity and trust.
Lisa
2/23/2018 02:17:36 pm
Well, I used the word "cynical" in haste. "Skeptical" is good, too. I think you can be curious both with and sometimes without being skeptical OR cynical, instead being curious just for the joy of it. If we get off the political slant and go into, say, health care, well, I had a long discussion with a relatively young friend last night about health care while we were working out at the fitness center. What do we believe. What do we go along with (trust) in the alternative health care world, vs. the traditional western drug-based world. We didn't even go into the placebo effect, which defies all evidence.
Agreed that curiosity doesn't demand skepticism. My April 24, 2017, post "On Curiosity" celebrates the joys of curiosity. All sorts of things can trigger curiosity (which may or may not lead to research, depending on time and mood and just how curious we are). When it's triggered by something we read or heard, it could be a matter of skepticism or it could be because we found something interesting and want to know more. All good, so long as it doesn't veer into danger or invasion of privacy.
Lisa
2/23/2018 05:16:14 pm
Your first para: I don't remember that post! Where was I. Your second para: yes. Your third para: That's what my young friend struggled a bit with. Her doctor recommended a low-dose antibiotic for 2 months for a stress-related inflammation around her eyes. My friend objected, but her research indicated it was probably the best move. So she's going to pick up the prescription. Also, our mutual friend had to confront that subject while going full-forward on her research into her recent book. One of her wise genealogy friends asked her, will you be able to live with what you can find out, if you find out the truth? Her reply was yes, although we've talked about it since, and the answer might have been different 10 years ago. And the reason would be — societal pressures pushing her in a certain direction. In her case, the society being her family. Wonder if there's any pattern to which kinds of curiosity-inspired research results we might find hard to live with. Is it the ones that challenge our sense of self, or reveal serious misdeeds by people we love or admire, or require a paradigm shift because a core belief is shaken? Or the ones we fear might be used, by others, for purposes we abhor?
Lisa
2/24/2018 01:44:39 pm
I don't know about you but this is how it works for me. If I am researching something merely because I'm curious, I am open to whatever I find. If I am researching for some other reason, I am pretty able to sort out the junk. "THIS PRODUCT IS A PIECE OF CRAP! DON'T BUY IT!" will not influence me in the slightest. However if I see three reviews stating that the product arrived not working or broken, that will influence me. I do require some intelligence in the information I'm looking at. Sorry to say, if someone has poor grammar, well, I may be less influenced by their comments. Comes from all my years of working with the likes of you! :) Partly perhaps because a person to whom good grammar is important is often more likely to spend some time compiling a thoughtful, useful tidbit for me. I don't then care if it's a negative or positive review. (Wanna know how long I took to compose this reply? HA!) Thoughtful reply, Lisa. Thank you. I share your bias about good grammar and clear writing, I hadn't thought about it being a sign the person is willing to take the time, but that fits. I prefer reviews (and news articles, and opinion posts of all sorts) with a high ratio of specifics to strong language.
Lisa
2/25/2018 09:19:42 am
THAT SAID, I do know some very educated, intelligent, shrewd people who are a) dyslectic, b) type slowly, c) have somewhat poor grammar and/or spelling, d) any combination of above. I value their opinions and research results greatly, especially when it comes in a spoken form. Why do I think that this topic relates mainly to the written word? Because we're talking about research I guess. I type like lightening.
Geoff
2/25/2018 11:03:07 am
Hello again, Lisa. (I keep parachuting in and out of this conversation.) I also know people like the ones you're describing. I value their opinions but I usually give preference to written sources. Now I'm wondering why. I guess it's partly cultural (Sarah and I both come from academic families). I think it's also just the way my brain is wired. Speech often goes in one ear and out the other, whereas I can sit and ponder a book. I'm also very aware that online technology may lure us into a future where oral and visual communication replace writing. That would be an awful loss and I want to do my best to defend literacy.
Lisa
2/25/2018 02:45:38 pm
Geoff, we are probably talking about slightly different kinds of research. :) My research topic today was on a new kitchen range hood. My dyslectic friend's research is on Tai Chi, and meditation. Interesting you think writing will be replaced. Since I work for writers — of articles, catalog descriptions, blogs, novels, marketing — I can't imagine a world without the written word. It's still behind all visual communication, don't you think? Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin.
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