Feeling and Truth
"... through lowered educational standards, declining intellectual competence, diminished zest for substantive debate, and social sanctions against skepticism, our liberties can be slowly eroded and our rights subverted."
"Trends working at least marginally towards the implantation of a very narrow range of attitudes, memories, and opinions include control of major television networks and newspapers by a small number of similarly motivated powerful corporations and individuals, the disappearance of competitive daily newspapers in many cities, the replacement of substantive debate by sleaze in political campaigns, and episodic erosion of the principle of the separation of powers... It's hard to tell how it's going to turn out"
"I have a forboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
-Carl Sagan, "The Demon Haunted World", copyright 1995
A friend, Marshall, posted this on Facebook and I thought I'd share. This is becoming increasingly true especially in America, being one of the most advanced countries, while also being one of the most religious and illogical. We are increasingly becoming a nation which believes more in popularity than fact, more in what feels good than what is good. Being a scientist and idealist, this really stood out to me. What do you guys think?