Ending Our Alternative-Reality Politics Demands a New Way of Educating Citizens

Instead of studying government and technology as separate subjects, today's students should learn about how each influences the other.

By and
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The framers of America’s Constitution and the architects of our modern technology firms have something in common. They were all informed by a deep understanding of human nature—classic texts for the Founders; cognitive science for the technologists—and keenly aware that our passions often get the better of us. 

The Constitution is a brilliant exercise in restraining those innate forces; social media is an ingenious tool for exploiting them. If there’s any hope of preventing our digital divisions from overwhelming our democracy, we must relearn the deep wisdom that shapes our system of government for the better and distorts our online world for the worse. 

That will mean a new approach to curriculum in both civics and technology. It’s not enough to know how a bill becomes a law, or how a search engine generates results. Students need to connect the age-old wisdom that underpins both systems so that they can do the urgent work of reform.  

If that seems like a lot to ask of young people, remember that democracy’s founders and our modern tech moguls share another trait: They made world-changing decisions at very young ages.  

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  1. Dennis Trask

    Its not that complicated, schools have addressed critical thinking and propaganda. Certainly some better than others. The overall negative cultural influences are killing our institutions including schools making the job much more difficult. The Steve Bannons of the world have the field. Candidates and campaigns go with what gets votes. I think we really need candidates of character who seek office to to the right thing as opposed to winning the race and killing the nation in the process. Think Cruz, Hawley, Geen, and who ever on the extreme left you might find to compare these characters to. I wonder, is there anyone on the left who is actually as horrid regarding ethics and the actual impact of what they are doing as Cruz, Hawley et. al.?

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    Robert Knudson

    It seems to me that the best way to deal with the internet's ability to connect factional elements and to nationalize their interests is to decentralize governmental power. This will not prevent factional elements from assembling, but it does concentrate their effects into more local jurisdictions without unleashing them on the population at large. Additionally, a firm commitment to our common rights as espoused in the Bill of Rights will limit the scope of action available to a faction at any level at which they act.

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    DougAz

    I think the ideals expressed here are on the side of a good thing. The problem is, "WHO DECIDES" ?

    Do we have ANY independent thinking authorities today ?
    Do we have ANY unchallenged independent thinking authorties ?

    What is to keep QAnon, and formerly credible Harvard, Stanford Lawyers like Cruz, Hawley, and all the G Q P out of this "Public endeavor" ?

    What topics are "Off-limits" ?
    Creation ?
    Evolultion
    Intellegent Design ?
    Christ or Mohammed or Buddha ?
    The Lost Cause ? or Critial Race Theory ?

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      Logical

      "Christ or Mohammed or Buddha"

      None of the above. Krishna.

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    2. Chris Exantus

      ""WHO DECIDES" ?"

      It's never going to be a one side fix all, so it is going to be a constant, ever changing discussion. But this is something that, A. Needs to be done in good faith, and B. needs to be supported by research and facts. I know that that's easier said then done, though I think those restrictions knock out "The Lost Cause," and Qanon. At the very least, they're worth learning about in order to understand where things we wrong.

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        DougAz

        I guess the author's intent is well meaning. But frankly, I think teaching about "bias" in anything but hard math and science and engineering - is fool's gold. The sponsors come with bias, and can't really extract it from teaching about bias.

        Thus, I have a counter proposal to Michael Powell and Stephanie Sanford to consider:

        Dramatically. Significantly. By 10x. Go Big. Support STEM. Support Science Fairs. Support DOING OBJECTIVE things. Institionalize the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Critical thinking:
        Have an idea - see an idea - form a hypothesis
        Get information - get data - experiment - try things
        Review, analyize, digest, discuss - what is seen, observed, agreed as data
        Draw Conclusions. - alone, with parents, with teachers, in teams of peer students
        Present - Stand up for objective work, appreciate others work.

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  4. Chris Exantus

    The best thing I've heard about this topic is that "we are responding to 21st century problems with 20th century solutions." Social media is exacerbating problematic human behavior to an unthinkable level. The irony of having so much information at our fingertips is that we don't actually know how to interpret much of it. It's like going on Netflix and trying to figure out what movie to watch, and spending more time randomly shuffling through a near limitless selection than actually watching a movie: It's too much.

    Media literacy has to be at the forefront of whatever new education policy there is. It's not enough to simply learn about sources in an era when any person can easily make up whatever they want. Knowing hot to spot deep fakes, knowing proper channels to get information, being able to put two-and-two together to figure out if you're being misled by propaganda. These are things that have to be taught, and it should be taught sooner or later.

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  5. Mathew A

    I very much agree that more education is responsible, and I'm sure social media usage is a problem, more education or even the elimination of social media wouldn't have stopped Jan 6th.

    Jan 6th wasn't caused by some fringe elements hiding in a small group chat on facebook. It was caused by the President of the United States spreading lies for two months. And much of those lies was spread on rightwing TV and internet media.

    That being said, I do think real civics, constitutional law, and economics education in school, and college could go a long ways towards bridging the divide in the country.

    For example, all students should understand that the 1st amendment covers hate speech.
    That the federal government is suppose to be one of limited enumerated powers, and that power is supposed to be divided not concentrated in the executive branch.

    And that if we want changes in how the government operates, then we need a constitutional amendment, not just 5 living consitutionalists on the court

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    1. Mathew A

      Also fun facts studies have shown that giving people facts can actually make them cling to the falsehood even more. (that's all of us). And the more educated you are, the better you tend to be at sticking to the partisan line.

      You have all these logic tools to try and refute stuff that challenges your world view.

      Think about this, when was the last time you changed your mind about something that was REALLY important to you, and was part of your tribal identity.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Well it depends on how you view human nature.

    If you view it primarily as good, you are likely more pie in the sky idealist, the Silicon Valley type. Too which, all one needs to do, is say, “Have you been on twitter?”.

    If you view man as inherently more prone to do wrong, you go in the founders direction. After all, if men were angels you would not need governments.

    Or the police. Or military. Or criminal law, etc.

    The idealist of the tech industry are being fully punched with the fist of reality. And the morals completely buckle.

    We could go all the way back to the Babylonians and the Code of Hammurabi to state what our ancestors saw (many of them) as obvious.

    You need law to stop the mob, and an enforcement mechanism to do it as well.

    Others, well, you get Chaz in Seattle.

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    Pat Riot

    I'm all for teaching kids the basics of discerning bias, how to read statistics correctly, how to scrutinize a study, and so forth. Off the top of my head I can think of a bunch of classroom exercises they could use for the rest of their life (imagine one showing them polling bias based on the way the question is asked).

    But the "alternative-reality" problem we have today is a *moral* failure, not a technical or cognitive one. Most Q-Anon believers "believe" in these conspiracies because they *want* to believe it. For every kilobyte of Q-Anon nonsense there is on the Internet, there is a terabyte of truth out there refuting it. Many people chose the latter nonetheless.

    And besides *wanting* nonsense to be true, we are faced with the corollary problem: believers experience absolutely no downside to their belief. In fact, believing in conspiracy theories carries so little downside in our society that one's belief in them can be used as a shield for more obviously odious devotion e.g. voting for the Republicans ("yes the Republicans are terrible but Q told me to do it").

    I don't know when or even if our country will absolve itself of its current addiction to conspiracy theories, but the *only* thing that will move the needle is *harsh reality*. That reality might present itself as a half million Americans dead from a virus we should have mostly avoided, or it might not. On the side of the conspiracy theories are entities who profit from lies: tyrants. The enemy of freedom is lies, and those who wish to take our freedom knows this. You can tell one lie or a dozen lies, but the "experts" in this field know that the best way to go about lying is to obliterate the entire notion of of truth.

    Hence conspiracies like Q-Anon should be looked at for what they are: the spawn of evil. They were invented and promoted by people who wish to destroy our country and its founding principles of equality and justice.

    The way to fight evil is with moral certitude, not technical gadgets.

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    1. Chris Exantus

      Can't it be both? Part of the issue is that schools are not teaching students how to connect different ideas with one another. Apparently things just sort of happen. It took college courses and my own personal study to recognize that that's not the case, that every action has a reaction.

      Part of what's intoxicating about conspiracy theories is that it is simple. The reality is: there is no golden narrative. There is nothing that can adequately explain life in an easy to comprehend narrative, no matter how hard we try. There are people who are aware that life is unfair, but are not equipped with the proper questions to ask for the answers. So it's easy to hide behind white-washed, manufactured narratives that are nice and easy to understand. Some of the Capital Rioters were shouting 1776! without even understanding the complexities leading up to and after the Revolutionary War. Our schools do not teach kids critical thinking; they just teach them to listen to authority figures and memorize facts without bothering to contextualize it in a modern context.

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        Pat Riot

        Like I said, it won't hurt, but if people *want* to believe no amount of training will prevent them. I personally don't believe that most Q-Anon supporters *really* believe the conspiracy, they just use it as an excuse to vote Republican. The emotion pull of the idea combined with the lack of accountability can override whatever technical training people are given.

        The Capitol terrorists were shouting "1776!" because that's what they say on Fox News. It's the same reason they say, "socialism!" or "Venezuela!" or any one of the other Republican catchphrases. They don't know what *any* of it means, but here's the thing: they don't care. And here's the other thing: they don't have any *reason* to care.

        We've had undereducated idiots in our country for a long time--since we began. Only now, when a major political force in our country has intentionally corrupted them has this become a serious threat to our country.

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        1. Chris Exantus

          "We've had undereducated idiots in our country for a long time--since we began."

          Sure. But these things are also accelerated thanks to 24/hrs news, advance technology, and long lasting problems within the education system. Sure, dumb people will always dumb, but course correction could at least diminish this issue.

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            Pat Riot

            Technology is accelerating the issue, that's for sure. The problem is, I don't see that going away. It will probably even get worse.

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    2. Mathew A

      How about the lie that debt doesn't matter. When does that lie die?

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    3. Dean

      Yes, but... I would counter that the 74 million Americans that voted for Trump are not all immoral, yet, they voted for an immoral man. Why? I believe it is because fear, hatred and tribalism have affected their judgement and discernment. This is fed and reinforced to a large part by the information they consume.

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        Pat Riot

        Clearly the producers and proliferators of the false information are on far lower rungs of hell. Somewhat higher are those who excuse it.

        Apple founder Steven Jobs famously avoided scientific treatment for his cancer until it was too late because he had... beliefs...

        Whose fault is that? I guess you can spread the blame around somewhat...

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    Beth

    I dunno - just stick with the basics. Who? What? Why? If we taught kids to approach every political post, comment, news article, meme etc. regardless of whether it is on the NYT, TikTok, or Discord - keeping an open mind on those questions...Who is writing an article and what is their expertise? Why should I believe them? And then to VERIFY by checking other sources and finding competing theories/viewpoints - you know basic research - a lot of this would be addressed. I don't think you have to learn coding or cognitive psychology theories to be a better digital media consumer and citizen.

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      Kmregan7

      The basics are absolutely a great place to start, but we clearly need more. I would bet a majority of us were taught "the basics" and certainly the older generations, those more likely to believe lies and false news, were taught both civics and basic research (who, what, why, where)....so we need more.

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    Tele

    Some time back in high school there was the “big term paper.” As this was the 79 or 80, we could use books, or the Reader Guide to Periodical Literature. Large yearly volumes of indexes, quarterly updates you had to ask the librarian to look at, and she kept a watchful eye to make sure you returned it.

    It was a slow painful process, but somehow I found enough sources to finish the paper, either in library shelves, or microfilm.

    Index cards with the information or quote you used on one side, and all the information about the source on the other. (FWIW: I think MLA and APA citation are the ultimate in anal-retentive yet totally arbitrary rules ever invented by people who think Algebra is the work of the devil).

    It seemed to take forever to find the information, yet alone useful information.

    Fast forward to my masters degree in the mid 2000’s. I type into the library’s data base, and instantaneously get thousands of sources that aren’t at all what I’m looking for.

    I’m of an age where I expect technology to take a drudgery (typing papers, working on spread sheets, etc.) and make it easier. We’ve all become our own administrative assistants, was the price.

    If you’ve never done it the old way, you don’t understand how the tool is supposed to be helping.

    Yes...I totally admit my point can be summarized by Calvin’s dad: It Build Character.

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      Tele

      This needs an edit feature. It Builds Character.

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    Jerry McKamy

    There are two competing and contrary forces involved. Both the tech developers and the Framers understood the pervasive sin of mankind. The BIG difference is that when it came to government, the Framers set up a system to restrain and mitigate the evils inherent in mankind. However, big Tech's purpose in existing, fundamentally, is to make money and profits are maximized by catering to mankind's desires and darker motivations. Education won't solve this problem because education cannot change mankind's heart. In this case, government will need to reign in the excesses of Tech with laws and that is bound to rub up against some Constitutional boundaries, broadening the gray zones of what is and isn't protected.

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      Victor Clairmont

      Pretty much.

      It’s “how do you view the nature of man?” And the laws and idea’s follow.

      That’s all this is.

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