So much bitterness here in the comments like "duh", "took them long enough", etc. So, honest question: if, you know, a pillar of democracy is by default laughed at, how can then this democracy function? If half the country thinks they are getting brainwashed, and the other half doesn't think they are getting brainwashed (while possibly getting brainwashed right in that same moment). How can such people make educated choices?
They don't make educated choices, they don't make choices at all.
Human societies can be broadly categorized into three groups:
1) The largest group (typically more than half) don't know what's going on.
2) The second group sees what's going on but doesn't do anything about it.
3) The third group (which is really tiny, like 1-in-10000) sees what's going on and does things, or they try to.
The open secret among groups 2 and 3 is that group 1 has to be managed (otherwise they go off the rails and crash civilization pretty quickly. It's happened before.)
So you get things like Religion, Sports, War, etc. all more-or-less to keep "the masses" on the tracks. The invention of the TV was a huge advance for this purpose. Suddenly people are staying inside and not causing trouble! You can even sort of program them: en mass people behave with statistical predictability. (E.g. you can get women to start smoking cigarettes. True example.)
Anyway, from this POV (I read "Manufacturing Consent" at a tender age) the masses have no agency. Democracy is a side-show, part of the management API for the masses.
What we're seeing now (from my POV) is the Internet ripping the lid off of the propaganda control system. "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?"
Can you support your claims as for these ratios? I can't support my claim well, but I picture people to be more equally-distributed among those 3 groups.
Also, I'd state it more starkly:
1) 1/3 don't know or care about the suffering of people in general.
2) 1/3 wish harm on others or care so little about others that they'll seek even small personal gains at others' great expense.
3) 1/3 at least feel compassion for others, but might not have the ability or resolve to make substantial change.
Why do you think that group 1 is the one that needs to be controlled? Why not the ones seeking harm? I encourage apathetic people to become more politically-conscious, but I don't blame people for wanting to live their own lives.
I do agree that a lot of institutions are just toys: certain religions which talk about peace but whose followers openly and proudly support policies which harm others, political parties which offer team identities but no real change, etc.
Please don't take anything here as a blanket statement against any particular group.
> Can you support your claims as for these ratios?
I think the article we're commenting on is just that, no?
> Half of Americans in a recent survey indicated they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting.
That would seem to imply that more than half of Americans didn't realize that until recently, eh?
> I'd state it more starkly: 1) 1/3 don't know or care about the suffering of people in general. 2) 1/3 wish harm on others or care so little about others that they'll seek even small personal gains at others' great expense. 3) 1/3 at least feel compassion for others, but might not have the ability or resolve to make substantial change.
I think you're talking about something else than I am. You seem to be talking about motivation, I'm talking about political power. The OP's question was, "how can then this democracy function" if "people [can't] make educated choices?"
> Why do you think that group 1 is the one that needs to be controlled?
Do you mean my group 1 or your group 1? My group 1 needs to be controlled if you want a complex society. Otherwise they'll destroy it without malice through entropy.
If you mean your group 1 then I don't think they should be controlled, but I would encourage them to try to develop compassion.
I think it's definitely a "duh" that at least some news sources are deliberately misleading us. Propaganda and lobbying are rampant and always have been.
The poll is extremely ambiguous of whether it's talking about some or all or *most", etc. And even commenters here saying "duh" are also ambiguous about that.
> How can such people make educated choices?
Answering in a way that stays in context: by listening to trustworthy news sources. (I don't think this contradicts the poll.)
The purpose of democracy is to pacify people who vote into thinking that they have responsibility or they are somehow "heard" while leaving the people who select the candidates in charge.
"Look, you had a choice between two candidates whom are identical other than social issues both sides have agreed to never actually do anything about, so stop rebelling and protesting in the streets, you got to vote so now its your turn to mindlessly obey your leaders and stop complaining"
Hmm if only the founding document of America was written in such a way as to divide the country into smaller polities that could focus on their own issues, we could I don't know divide the country into 50 geographical areas and have them manage within their borders pretty much anything that isn't defense, foreign policy, or weights and measures. But that's nonsense of course, why shouldn't voters in SF decide the best way for the people of Bismark to live.
voting, which is presumably the cornerstone of the society, is done by this same mass of people, and results in electing people with the most deadly powers in the world, among other things.
Interesting how you conflate "voting" and "electing people". While voting is indeed a corner stone of democracy, as a supporter of sortition I think that elections are anti-democratic.
You're putting people "in charge" (as if people in office were actually in charge) by selecting between a very very narrow pool of pre-approved candidates.
