Dec. 27, 2006
COMMENTARY: Is the ‘Person of the Year’ Dealing in Truth?
By David Yount
Scripps Howard News Service
Here's an unexpected holiday gift. You have just been named Time
magazine's
"Person of the Year." The bad news is that the magazine's editors
awarded
every other American the same honor.
"You control the Information Age" is Time's justification for making
all of
us equally important. Unfortunately, "control" is more than a slight
exaggeration. Sure, cheap technology has enabled any interested persons
with
a computer to record their appearance, opinions, tastes, and emotional
lives
on the Internet. Millions of Americans already have, and the number of
bloggers is predicted to reach 100 million by the middle of 2007.
Although the Internet is a boon for anyone's self-esteem, it's no
guarantee
that anyone else will care about what you and I think, feel, and aspire
to,
let alone choose to take us seriously. Every serious performer requires
an
audience, and that entails having something worthy to say.
More than three of every four bloggers acknowledge that they want to
record
and share their experiences. Some 37 percent admit that they just want
to
talk about themselves. That, of course, limits the time they can devote
to
learning from anybody else and determining what is true and what is
false.
Years ago, before the Internet became so accessible, I went to one of
the
major television networks to seek a grant that would guarantee every
accredited journalist in the Nation's Capital free access to all the
available data bases of the time.
I was turned down flat. "Reporters should verify their own sources," I
was
told. "No one can vouch for the reliability of the information on the
Internet, because anyone can pose as an authority. Garbage in, garbage
out."
To illustrate: One Tuesday last October some 40,000 Britons sat down at
their computers to record their experiences of that day, trusting that
future historians might find it a serious snapshot of everyday life in
the
21st century. London's Sunday Times offered this synopsis of the
results:
" 'One Day in History,' " in the year 2006 revealed us to be a nation
obsessed with ourselves, logging in detail all the items we consumed
for
breakfast, the kinds of shampoo we used in the shower, and musing over
whether autumn was already bringing on the first cold. The monotony of
most
of our lives was all too painfully obvious."
It took Christianity close to four centuries to sort out which of the
written accounts of Jesus could be considered reliable. Until then
there
were all kinds of fanciful gospels floating around, many of which put
words
in the mouth of the Jesus of history. It took a great church council to
create the compact New Testament on which we rely.
The Information Age that we celebrate some 17 centuries later resembles
a
vast attic of curiosities, most of which reflects the prejudices,
daydreams,
and narcissism of amateur bloggers.
Long ago, Pilate mocked Jesus by asking him, "What is truth?" May I
suggest:
"In God we trust, not Google."
David Yount's latest book is Celebrating the Rest of Your Life: A Baby
Boomer's Guide to Spirituality (Augsburg). He answers readers at P.O.
Box
2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount@erols.com