American Education Part III
Beauty pageant contestants are by no means the only people expected to have educated opinions; we see movie stars and rock musicians wandering the earth in support of various causes, with varying amounts of attention and diligence.
In this context it is well to remember the maxim, produced by a wise person whose name I do not remember, that the less mainstream the position, the more likely that the person actually supports it strongly; hence of the many rockers who turned up for Live Earth, relatively few are truly concerned about global warming, but Ian Anderson probably really is worried about the declining population of the Andean Mountain Cat.
The problem here is not so much with the movie and rock stars; some of them really have thought about the problems they want to address and really cared about solving them. Some don't, of course, but the illusion of caring is almost as good as really caring for the purposes of celebrity endorsement. It should also be noted that it is not only movie stars who stick their oars in on subjects outside those that made them famous; Nobel laureates are also notorious for this sort of thing, although they tend to work more by treatise and letter to the editor than by photo-op, since more people want to read what they've written and fewer want to look at them.
The more important question is--why do people care about celebrity endorsement of causes at all? Do we need Bono to tell us that sub-Saharan Africa is mired in poverty, war, plague, and general misery? Do we need him to tell us this is a very bad thing? Do we need him to tell us what to do?
If we do, the first is a failure to be factually educated, and the second a failure to be morally educated. For the third, macroeconomics is not really Bono's first area of expertise, which should make us skeptical; but even if it were, a host of experts with differing opinions could easily be found. How are we to evaluate Bono's plan, and those of other economists and humanitarians?
To do that, we need to know what ends are desirable (moral education), what has been attempted in the past (historical or factual education) and what that means for our present endeavor (rational education).
See? We did come back to education. Next question: what is education anyway?
In this context it is well to remember the maxim, produced by a wise person whose name I do not remember, that the less mainstream the position, the more likely that the person actually supports it strongly; hence of the many rockers who turned up for Live Earth, relatively few are truly concerned about global warming, but Ian Anderson probably really is worried about the declining population of the Andean Mountain Cat.
The problem here is not so much with the movie and rock stars; some of them really have thought about the problems they want to address and really cared about solving them. Some don't, of course, but the illusion of caring is almost as good as really caring for the purposes of celebrity endorsement. It should also be noted that it is not only movie stars who stick their oars in on subjects outside those that made them famous; Nobel laureates are also notorious for this sort of thing, although they tend to work more by treatise and letter to the editor than by photo-op, since more people want to read what they've written and fewer want to look at them.
The more important question is--why do people care about celebrity endorsement of causes at all? Do we need Bono to tell us that sub-Saharan Africa is mired in poverty, war, plague, and general misery? Do we need him to tell us this is a very bad thing? Do we need him to tell us what to do?
If we do, the first is a failure to be factually educated, and the second a failure to be morally educated. For the third, macroeconomics is not really Bono's first area of expertise, which should make us skeptical; but even if it were, a host of experts with differing opinions could easily be found. How are we to evaluate Bono's plan, and those of other economists and humanitarians?
To do that, we need to know what ends are desirable (moral education), what has been attempted in the past (historical or factual education) and what that means for our present endeavor (rational education).
See? We did come back to education. Next question: what is education anyway?
Posted by sealionii on
Friday August 31, 2007 at 9:59pm