The Institution of Ignorance
I had the sudden realization this morning that much of what we see from the anti-mask, pandemic-is-a-hoax, anti-vaccine people is deeply rooted in how they were schooled. We encounter people who seem to know nothing about science or how to find reliable information, and sometimes think, wow, our education system is a failure, but I think we might miss the exact reason why this is more true than we would like to admit.
Here’s how many “research paper” and essay writing, composition exercises are delivered in secondary school, especially. I know, because I was a secondary school writing teacher for 15 years.
- Have a thesis and write a thesis statement in one clear sentence
- Find supporting information or “evidence”for your thesis
- Use three to five paragraphs (or seven paragraphs if you’re an honors student, because longer means smarter) to “support” your thesis.
- Conclude persuasively, tying up any remaining loose ends
This is a gussied up form of the opinion piece or the “persuasive essay,” that only differs from those exercises by the inclusion of citations of “supporting evidence.” Teachers labor tirelessly with students on how they select their sources, what constitutes a valid source that can be used as a citation, and may even try to work with students on including strong evidence contrary to their thesis, actively countering our natural tendency to cherry pick. But these are much higher level skills than the template I outlined, and, even as a lab instructor for human anatomy and physiology labs at the university level, these were very challenging tasks for many students. I regularly had university students who cited Wikipedia, or a non-edu website, or an blatant opinion piece, when writing their lab reports.
So, instead of imagining that our confrontation with a Robert Kennedy, Jr. quoting anti-vaxxer is an encounter with a dumbass, we could just as well recall that, in fact, they probably got A’s in their writing classes, because they probably followed the above recipe very carefully. It may well be that the pretense to total content neutrality, as long as it is supported by “a strong thesis and good supporting evidence,” has contributed to the surreal, aggravating, alarming “post-fact” discourse we experience so often.
The impression I get quite often is that the anti-mask extremists, who admittedly bring a ton of passion to their ideology, have some kind of very strong underlying thesis. I imagine the underlying thesis is that “government is bad and any government order to wear masks is a reflection of that essentially bad, untrustworthy government.” I guess there’s usually the “slippery slope” fallacy thrown in there as well. This is that, somehow, the mask order will become permanent, or is just “the tip of the iceberg” and will lead to other government intrusions on our “liberty.” It may well be entirely futile to try to argue someone out of this strong thesis, as it is so deeply rooted in an entrenched and closely held belief system. There is actually plenty of evidence that governments are in fact evil, and are out to take away our liberties, and much of this evidence is available in confirmed historical records. The lack of trust doesn’t simply arise out of being propagandized by a duplicitous President and a biased Fox News or that eternal embellisher, Alex Jones. These aspects of our culture simply exploit the lack of trust and amplify it to a frenzy, at times.
Anyone for whom this is their strong thesis can then be the “well trained student” that they learned to be in the American writing classroom, and set off in search of a seemingly infinite number of videos, essays, opinion pieces, articles, and other sources that provide “strong supporting evidence.” The crux of the epistemological crisis is not that “people are dumb” or “people are gullible.” It’s that people are actually good at the process in which they were schooled.
So, when we decry “the failure of American education,” we are more accurately pointing to the shitty pedagogy of how research and writing is taught in many secondary school environments, and, ironically, how successful many students have been at following that pedagogy. Note well that I am not teacher bashing, but pointing to the pedagogy itself, and that its central idea of thesis/evidence entirely bypasses the necessity of reliability and credibility in a formal way. More than anything, this is one of the reasons we cling to the deeply flawed peer review system, as it is currently the only bulwark against the proliferation of bad sources that “provide strong supporting evidence” for a “strong thesis.” Again, all of this is not an attack on writing and research teachers in secondary school, whose jobs are alarmingly difficult as it is. One of the core toxicities that is driving the kind of recipe-based writing I am describing is the commercialization of “skill sets.” After all, what is the use of writing? Of course, its primary use will be “on the job,” where it will be “important to write persuasively and clearly,” even if one is disseminating a memo on how to perpetrate state-sponsored torture, for example.
One of the strong remedies for this alarming reality is to get back to the fundamentals of credibility. In a post-fact world, finding ways to bang the drum of credibility, or lack thereof, of “strong supporting evidence” is crucial. Peer review is partly effective at this, again, in spite of its flaws. But, perhaps even more effective, instead of trying to talk someone down off their “strong thesis” or simply providing better sources of factual information than they are using to “support their thesis,” introducing a discussion of credibility may be useful.
One example recently involved an encounter with an armchair epidemiologist of the older white male variety, who, when someone countered his claims that the pandemic is a hoax by mentioning Dr. Fauci, replied “Fauci is a deep state liar and doesn’t know what he is talking about.” One can easily find where this guy got his “strong supporting evidence” for this statement, which, to most normal people who are exposed to most normal sources, simply sounds utterly insane. To find where this guy was getting his “strong thesis” that Fauci is not credible, all one has to do is use a search engine and enter the phrase “Fauci conspiracy theories.” It’s a wild ride, and I hope my good readers have a sense of humor. It is not easy to counter such a claim, since, of course, proving a negative is impossible. However, I keep handy the Google Scholar stats on Doc Fauci’s career, shown in the image below.
I then explain in a general way that the h-index, for example, is a multiple measure of the impact a scientist has had in their field, and that a spectacular h-index is considered to be in the 40–60 range, and well, look at Fauci’s: 219. Nearly a quarter million career citations. His citation record stretches back to 1981. This helps, perhaps, shift the conversation away from the post-fact hall of mirrors to a conversation about credibility. There’s no legit way to convince someone that Fauci is not a deep state agent or not intentionally misleading the American people. That always feels futile, because, again, it is impossible to prove a negative. There may well be a way to introduce some common sense perspective, however, especially in conversations where so-called “undecided” people who are reading the thread on social media are paying attention.
In short, it seems that people are altogether too well schooled in the form of what passes for research and writing, and were not trained in credibility, in finding strong sources, and in examining evidence that does not support their “strong thesis,” or, if they were, some have chosen to bypass all of those more demanding aspects of their education. When the combination of a “strong thesis” rooted in an ideological conviction that is very passionately held meets “strong supporting evidence” that is from less than credible sources, a real crisis of ignorance and its proliferation is made possible. It’s institutionalized ignorance, because it successfully follows the outward form of “research.” It often seems futile to provide more credible sources, since, for example, an anti-masker will just retort that the source is not credible. It’s perhaps more valuable to be ready to have a conversation about credibility itself, especially from non-technical, common sense perspectives.
I also try to recall that I am not correcting institutionalized ignorance, but providing the ground of credibility with credible sources for “bystanders” to the conversation, who are “undecided” but could probably find it reassuring that reliable sources even exist. I think one of the side effects of the post-fact existential discourse is severe anxiety and bewildered anger. Where can we put our feet down? Where does credibility even reside, and how can we assess credibility? I feel like providing some reassurance along these lines counters much of the foreclosure on reliable information out there, which, ironically, seems driven by our very need for reliability and certainty. If my starting place is the “strong thesis” that governments are evil and not to be trusted, it then becomes very important for me, emotionally, to be absolutely certain that some kind of nefarious plot is afoot behind the simple public health order to wear masks in public. I will go to great lengths to find “strong supporting evidence” for my “strong thesis,” but my need for absolute certainty will drive every single one of my sources.
