Weapons of mass distraction

Joe Carter and I may disagree how to evaluate a presidential candidate, but I still greatly respect his ability to examine many issues. In his most recent post, he looks at how we're more awash in information than ever, while at the same time understanding less than ever:

Why do so many people buy into the ridiculous notion that a daily diet of current events is anything other than a mindless (though perhaps harmless) form of amusement? Even ardent news-hounds will admit that the bulk of daily "news" is nothing more than trivia or gossip. How much of what happens every day truly is all that important? How many of us have ever even stopped to ask why we have daily news?

As University of Florida history professor C. John Sommerville notes in his excellent book, How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Age:

The product of the news business is change, not wisdom. Wisdom has to do with seeing things in their largest context, whereas news is structured in a way that destroys the larger context. You have to do certain things to information if you want to sell it on a daily basis. You have to make each day's report seem important. And you do that by reducing the importance of its context.

This focus on change has had a crippling effect on conservatism. Once we believed our mission as conservatives was to "stand athwart history yelling 'Stop.'" Change was something to be undertaken slowly and with reflection. After all, the important institutions--family, religion, government--shouldn't change on a whim. But now even conservatives are becoming more like liberals. We don't just ask what government has done for us lately; we ask what it has done for us today. We don't just ask for change when it is needed, we ask for it daily.

The immediacy and emotional skewing of "news" means we don't respond thoughtfully in the long run. Not satisfied with the local response to Hurricane Katrina? Well, then, let's ditch federalism and Posse Comitatus. Worried about the terrorist behind every rock? Well, then, let's get rid of those pesky restrictions on executive power. We react from the gut, with no thought to the long-term consequences of our proposed feel-good actions.

As history repeatedly shows, one day the consequences will become apparent... and people will wonder "how did we get here," because they were distracted as the situation developed.