Collective Ignorance in "My Year of Meats"

An excerpt from a 1998 novel I've been reading, My Year of Meats, by Ruth L. Ozeki:

"I would like to think of my 'ignorance' less as a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, and example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizes the end of the millenium. If we can't act on knowledge, then we can't survive without ignorance. So we cultivate ignorance, go to great lengths to celebrate it, even. The faux-dumb aesthetic that dominates TV and Hollywood must be about this. Fed on a media diet of really bad news...which we, as citizens have so little control..., we live in a perpetual state of repressed panic. We are paralyzed by bad knowledge, from which the only escape is playing dumb. Ignorance becomes empowering because it enables people to live. Stupidity becomes proactive, a political statement. Our collective norm.

Maybe this exempts me as an individual, but it sure makes me entirely culpable as a global media maker."

It's remarkable to me that this passage was written before the entire Bush Presidency, which could easily be argued to have embraced the faux-dumb aesthetic. Indeed, I myself fully admit to embracing it through my chosen media diet. Prime example: season 6 of my favorite TV show, It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia, premieres tomorrow night, and I can't wait!

Ozeki's astute observations remain relevant in todays media climate, except that we as citizens have gained some control. In fact, the average American with a laptop is a global media maker. (Or at least has the potential to be, given that we protect certain tenants of democratic digital society, such as net neutrality.) It's my hope that I'm developing a healthy media-food diet, one which both celebrates human folly (as per the faux-dumb aesthetic), but also sharpens my capacity as a critical media consumer and producer. Though my media choices are plagued with imperfections, this blog provides me with a refuge for collecting disparate thoughts into something that might be considered meaningful - not contributing to digital noise and information clutter - but contributing to knowledge and, ultimately, understanding in daily life.