American culture has been structured around the ideal of an educated citizenry. This ideal holds that a free society requires educated people and that educated people create free societies. No less than Thomas Jefferson has written that, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
There are lots of ways we could go with this thought. We could challenge it – we could ask if Jefferson’s opinion is true: do well-educated people create free societies? In our day and age, well-educated people seem to be the ones more inclined to create Big Government and it’s the more humble people, the God-fearing people, the less educated people who seem to appreciate less government and real freedom.
Or we could approach Jefferson’s opinion from a point of pedagogy: does public education create the sort of educated people who are able to create free societies? We could even challenge Jefferson’s ideal of self-government in light of all of our modern personal dysfunctions and addictions.
There are many ways to consider his words.
The Boston Globe reports that two professors from the University of Michigan have come up with even another way to test Jefferson’s words. They wonder if facts even matter at all any more. They think that the desire to be right outweighs the desire to be factual for most people. They say that when most people have one opinion that is countered by facts, these people not only ignore the facts to hang on to their personal opinion they actually deny the facts.
These researchers call this phenomenon “backfire” – the idea that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong. They say that it’s a natural defense mechanism to avoid cognitive dissonance.
If these guys are right, it might explain an awful lot about politics today. For instance, it might explain why anti-immigration zealots continue to see undocumented immigrants as “criminals” even after it’s been explained that entering the country illegally the first time is a civil violation, like speeding, not a criminal violation of the law. That’s a fact and yet many anti-immigration zealots simply refuse to acknowledge it. The result is a less-free society, in my opinion.
But we need to be careful about how far we take the conclusions of these Michigan researchers – because facts are just facts. If facts are not accompanied by context, they could lead us equally down the primrose path away from freedom. My liberal and libertarian friends are notorious for doing this. On the right we see it with the “rule of law” crowd: doesn’t the law say this? Well, that’s a fact isn’t it? And on the left we see it with anti-poverty people: just give the guy some money…he’s poor…all he needs is money to make him whole. Of course, neither of those opinions is true but each is based on a fact – yes, the law does say this and yes, the guy doesn’t have money.
We also have to avoid confusing a personal belief with cognitive dissonance. Liberals most often can’t stand that many Americans hold certain political beliefs based on their very private religious beliefs – as if liberals don’t do the same thing with their worship of science and anti-religious beliefs – they don’t like that religious people have difficulty being persuaded by the facts.
I wish that the first thing every American school kid would be taught and learn is context for one’s intellectual exercises. The basis for our ideas is much more important than our ideas. Another way to say this is that universal truth is more important than momentary facts. For instance, it matters so much more that we view undocumented immigrants as we view ourselves than it does that they commit a civil infraction. Context matters. Context also keeps us free. Responsible citizens should seek facts, but they should love truth even more. Only then will Thomas Jefferson’s words have meaning.
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
