Unfortunately, the aforementioned depiction of the average Information Age’s human being is increasingly prevalent, especially as the effects of Globalization are felt across more and more of the planet. The growth of mass media conglomerates with the scope to broadcast to the farthest reaches of the earth ensures the palpability of a process of indoctrination. As a result of keeping this in mind, the question that must be asked is: What is the effect of this reality on the human brain?
Because there has been an expansion in humanity’s access to information, thanks to Globalization, humanity is becoming more and more knowledgeable. Nevertheless, as was mentioned earlier, the accretion of knowledge does not necessarily lead to the accretion of wisdom. Due to the difficulty the human brain has with processing massive volumes of information, there are a number of potentially apocalyptic consequences that could potentially ensue as a result of a brain despondently endeavouring to interpret a relentless stream of data.
In order to skilfully write a Theory of Knowledge paper, it is essential to concentrate exclusively on the subject in question. If the process of quiet contemplation is interrupted, it is almost an inevitability that your brain, and, as a consequence, your typing hands, will be distracted. If your goal is to eventually complete the Theory of Knowledge paper, then it is wise to persistently apply yourself to the task at hand. However, an urban Information Age lifestyle, with all the noise and clutter that entails, implies that your mind is being consistently bombarded with knowledge. A typical day at home for an Information Age teenager might involve spending time with the TV blaring, a vociferous sound system, a loquacious sibling, and an overprotective parent, each perpetually attempting to transmit knowledge to the aforementioned teenager.
With the aforesaid distractions so palpable in the busy background of modern life, quiet contemplation becomes, if not an impossibility, an unbelievably challenging endeavour. It is precisely this type of thoughtful reflection that, regrettably, is becoming rarer and rarer these days, that proliferates wisdom. Not coincidentally, wisdom, the application of obtained knowledge, is an asset indispensable to success in the Theory of Knowledge course, and thus the completion of a thought-provoking essay.
The example of knowledge saturation that was adduced in the above paragraph is a microcosm of mass media’s relationship with its consumers. The confused teenager who is really just trying to do his homework, but is being shouted at by his family, is analogous to the white collar workers who watch CNN while they drowsily stray into slumber. As mass media has become capable of transmitting its message to more and more people, its evocative powers have risen to unparalleled levels. The upcoming examples will demonstrate the vulnerability of the human brain whose function is stinted by the obscene amount of information it possesses.
Recently, before the commencement of the Second Gulf War, an international debate arose, on the subject of whether or not the war was justified. Media that backed the war bombarded its viewers and listeners with depictions of the atrocities committed by the Saddam Hussein regime, while anti-American reporting featured incessant diatribes mentioning United Nations estimates of how many innocent civilians would be killed should the United States attack Iraq. An informed listener, with the time to reflect and organize all the readily available erudition about the Middle East would be able to postulate that in some cases, the Hussein despotism’s genocidal acts involved the use of American weaponry, and that United Nations estimates of 200,000 to 500,000 innocent civilians dying in the American led war were utterly fallacious. Therefore, many of the ideas and agendas that mass media was attempting to promulgate would have less impact on a wiser society.
Because their busy workdays often conclude with a quick view of the news, the average human has little opportunity to carefully consider the implications of everything they hear on TV; all the other considerations that life produces take precedence. Therefore, subconsciously, it is likely that people, over encumbered with knowledge, had a tendency to accept what mass media had to tell them about the impending war in Iraq as gospel. Confused individuals are, ultimately, easy to mislead and mislead individuals are likely confused. This type of practice is, consequently, counterproductive to the proliferation of wisdom, and inimical to thoughtful reflection or contemplation.
In the early days of Hitlerian rule in Germany, the Nazi leader instructed his minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebels, to advocate criticism of the Jewish people. Part of this lip service involved an attack against what was termed “Jewish physics.” The manifestation of this propaganda offensive employed a number of relatively incompetent German physicists lecturing a crowd on the supposedly fallacious nature of Einsteinian physics. During this farce, Albert Einstein sat in the crowd, occasionally chuckling sardonically. He not only knew how ridiculous the display was, but also that the assembled multitudes were entranced by the lecturers, and that the propagandists could have said anything and the throng of onlookers would have agreed wholeheartedly. In large part, the Nazi propaganda campaign was successful because it flooded its consumers’ minds with information. It was the recipients’ lack of wisdom that perpetuated the lies, and prevented them from discerning between right and wrong, and arriving at the truth.
Ironically, for centuries, humanity has used knowledge, information and consequently, wisdom to stimulate progress and create more powerful technologies, which have eventually been manipulated in such a way that, in many cases, our wisdom has been abrogated. Consequently, many components of humanity would likely be too unwise to comprehend this cruel trick that it has, unknowingly, played on itself. The poignancy of T.S. Eliot’s quotation has been proven, and thus the problem of knowledge in question has been elucidated.