Disinformation

As the Covid-19 pandemic enters its third year, and as our culture sustains damage from the illness and death caused by the Covid-19 virus, from supply chain disruptions, from widespread chronic anxiety, from disruptive political forces and from a myriad of other causes, one harmful force stands out to me above all others:

Disinformation.

When I grew up, there were relatively few sources of public information, and they all were controlled by powerful gatekeepers. If one wanted to publish a letter to the editor, or a novel, or air a commercial, or get an original piece of music on the air—one had to ask a gatekeeper for permission first. And denials were far more common than permission.

This system had serious flaws, obviously. A great deal of human expression was held back or suppressed.

When the Internet—the greatest connection machine we’ve ever known—came along, a revolution in information flow occurred. This was the first communications medium in human history in which everyone who has a receiver—has a transmitter too. Now, we don't have to ask a gatekeeper in order to say something in public. We can write a blog post, share our music with the world, self-publish a novel or start a podcast, and we don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do so.

A decade ago, I was extremely optimistic about this. So much so that the ending of my first (self-published) novel, The Man Who Wore Mismatched Socks, points to this great freedom as the beginning of a glorious historical period in the life of humanity.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the dark side of human nature. Every tool we create, it seems, can be used for good or evil. And so now, disinformation, fearmongering and angermongering are a significant part of what is damaging our culture and disrupting our lives. There are people who spread disinformation because they can, and presumably because to do so is breathtakingly profitable.

Nowadays, I kind of miss Walter Cronkite.

Naturally, I’m not brimming with a solution to the vexing and harmful problem of disinformation. To paraphrase the iconic line by Dr. Leonard McCoy, “I’m a dentist, not a …” Well, who would it take to solve this, anyway? I’m not even sure. But I do want to share with you all a key insight that we need if we are going to, together, work our way out of this awful and dangerous mess.

Mary Parker Follett was an American social worker, management consultant, philosopher and pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior. She has been called the “Mother of Modern Management.” Ms. Follett passed away in 1933, so she performed her remarkable work a very long time ago. I have a great penchant for outliers, and for a woman in the 1910s and 1920s to be listened to, and respected, and her ideas acted upon by the male-dominated world of American business of her time was beyond remarkable. I’ve read her work and I can see why. Her unique brilliance was that she focused on the human element of business, and she regarded human beings as the most important component of any business enterprise.

Ms. Follett once told a little parable that is so relevant just now. I’ll present her parable here, in hopes that you gain insight and agency from her words.

“We need experts, we need accurate information, but the object is not to do away with difference but to do away with muddle. When for lack of facts you and I are responding to a different situation—you to the situation as you imagine it, I to the situation as I imagine, it—we cannot of course come to agreement. What accurate information does is to clear the ground for genuine difference and therefore make possible, I do not say make sure, agreement. The object of accurate information is not to overcome difference but to give legitimate play to difference.

“If I think I am looking at a black snake and you think it is a fallen branch, our talk will be merely chaotic. But after we have decided that it is a snake, we do not then automatically agree what to do with it. You and I may respond quite differently to ‘black snake’: shall we run away, or kill it, or take it home and make a pet of it to kill the mice? There is now some basis for significant difference.

“Difference based on inaccuracy is meaningless. We have not done away with difference, but we have provided the possibility for fruitful difference.”

Difference based on inaccuracy is meaningless. Indeed! Going forward, we all need to work together in order to re-establish a common cultural agreement on what Truth is. And we certainly need to be on guard against those who attempt to manipulate us with disinformation. Being on guard is critically important to protecting yourself and your family.

Stay safe and do good,

Rick Wilson DMD