Lately I’ve been struggling with the problem of how much information I should consume.
There is an article in the Economist about India’s election. Should I read it? If I do read it, what good would that do? It’s not knowledge that can be useful in a practical sense.
Should I learn about India so that I can be an informed voter? Only the President and maybe some Senators can impact what happens in India. Even if I do become an expert in India’s election, how much impact will my one vote have? Does that justify my time spent reading about India?
Should I become a more knowledgeable person in general? Why? Would people be more interested in me if I could talk about foreign politics? May some people, but that works for just about any topic.
I’m getting the sense that if I read about India’s election, it will have no practical impact except that I could feel better about doing something “smart” and maybe impress a few people.
A lot of people I know like to consume knowledge about issues and areas where they will have no impact. They’ll watch nature documentaries or read an introductory book on quantum physics. Is this something worth doing? Is it worth having a general knowledge about how things work in other cultures and other professional disciplines.
I’m not saying I should stop educating myself completely, but that I should stop consuming general information and start focusing on things more specific.
I think it only makes sense for a person to try to stay informed about issues that matter to them on both a personal and pratical level. If a person is invested in an issue, then they’ll be motivated to really learn about it in detail. Plus, a person only has a limited amount of time and energy. Better they focus their resources on something that’s meaningful to them than on something that isn’t.
That said, there is also value in maintaining a general compendium of knowledge, just because you never know when it will come in handy. Like, engaging in small talk. Some people dig talking about the weather and sports, while others gravitate to current events and “this interesting article I read the other day”. You never know what type of person you’re going to be stuck in the elevator with, so it is useful to know a little about a lot of things just in case. Even if it’s just so you can ask an “intelligent” sounding question to someone who is more informed.
And then there’s the fact that information doesn’t occur in a vacuum. You can’t appreciate biology if you don’t understand chemistry, which requires an understanding of physics. Same for sociology and history. It is possible for a person to specialize too much. I’d much rather talk to someone who can weave different subjects together in a semi-coherent fashion than someone who can only talk about their special interest, even if they know it in great detail. Someone like this is probably going to bore the hell out of me.
It’s just like no single person’s vote makes a difference, but a lot of people voting can make a difference in an election. One person being more informed about world matters, and discussing it with people, and voting based on the issues doesn’t make a huge difference, but a lot of people being more informed and basing decisions on that information can make a difference.
Right. You can’t just pick out the knowledge that will be useful to you and discard the rest, it all builds gradually upon knowledge that came before. Reading about the election in India won’t hugely change you as a person. But you might learn more about India as a country, and about their media, and about the differences between India and the US. Then next year if the big news story is about Pakistan, or about issues that Pakistan is having with India, you won’t be starting from square one in regards to knowledge about the area. Or if the big news story is about elections in China or some other big country, you won’t just be comparing in your mind their elections to American elections, you can also compare their elections to what you know about Indian elections.
For some issues you can’t be informed enough to make policy decisions unless you become an expert. No matter how many newspaper articles I read about healthcare reform, the guys on the congressional committee working on the bill will know much more than I do. Pretty much anyone reading newspapers about healthcare reform will be too ignorant to make informed voting decisions about healthcare.
Two ways to put it in perspective. Whenever the question is “should”, it raises the question “for what purpose?” If you think about what your goals are (short term, long term, life choices, etc) then you can inform your choices in these matters from that practical standpoint.
The other is a matter of interest. I inform myself on lots of things simply because I’m interested. IMHO, people who are interested in things are more interesting, but I don’t do it for that purpose: I do it just for the grins.
If there is no practical purpose and you’re not interested, then forget it. There is no end to the amount of information available. You have to balance both of the above with “What would I rather spend my time doing?”
The balance between your answer to the last question and the first two is what really matters.
I believe in having a good, all-around general knowledge. You never know when it can come in handy. Not only might people not think you stupid but they might actually fall in awe at you and seek you out as a font of information. How far that “should” extend is difficult to say. But I’m reminded of one lady, whom I’ve mentioned on the Board before, who despite being in Texas, and born and raised in Texas, and never having left Texas, honestly did not know where Mexico was. You should probably be better than that.
A lot of intelligence is about making connections between things. You may not get much out of the India article now. But maybe a few years from now there will be a situation in a place that does matter to you that resembles India’s, and you’ll be able to think back to how that turned out and have some insight.
Stay informed about as much as you can handle. If you ever want to be able to know and maintain more than you do know, how will you ever manage it without pushing your current limits?
Of course, its not for everyone & the OP may be at their max capability now. I guess what was true 40 years ago is still true today:
Be as informed as you practically can, but more importantly, be a critical thinker and never stop being a student. It’s not about how much information you accumulate, it’s about the methods you use to gather and process the information available to you.
That’s…amazing. Not saying I don’t believe you, but it’s amazing that anyone born here could not be able to look at where the Sun or the North Star is and be able to at least vaguely point to Mexico. It’s like someone in North Dakota not being quite sure where Canada is.
“We’re coming up on a diner. Our guide has said that there are people there who May Have Heard of North Dakota. I think we’ll stop in for a quick bite to eat. Maybe the locals will show…”
I had just returned to West Texas from a trip to Mexico. I was sitting in my regular bar, when she said hello and mentioned she hadn’t seen me for a while. I said I’d been in Mexico. She said, in all seriousness as I was soon to learn: “Where’s that?” I laughed at what I thought was her little joke, but it hurt her feelings enormously. She said in a hurtful tone of voice: “Well, I’m not smart like you.” Turns out she honestly did not know where Mexico was despite, again, having been born and raised in Texas. Granted, she was not the smartest bulb in the bunch at the best of times, and I don’t think she had finished high school – she’d left to pursue a, um, professional career – but I was flummoxed by that revelation and felt bad to boot. She was not kidding, you had to know her.
I also knew an American over here who was from Baltimore and had a master’s degree in journalism. So it is inexplicable to me that he had never heard of HL Mencken. He seriously had not. Although he grew up in Baltimore, his master’s was from a small school in Boston, and his bachelor’s degree was in a non-journalism-related field. But still that seems incredible. I still see him around from time to time, but he has some serious mental problems and has in fact been in and out of psychiatric wards in Bangkok. He absolutely refuses to leave Thailand, but it would be the best thing for him. I see his writings in the paper occasionally. He writes freelance, considers himself quite the storyteller, but his stuff is pretty innocuous tourist fluff for the most part, with no insights whatsoever. The last I heard, his main job now is teaching English at some school he managed to wheedle his way into. Strange little guy, to say the least.
I was at organizational meeting for a political candidate, talking to a college student who identified himself as a conservative, studying American political history. I made a reference to William F. Buckley. He had never heard of him.
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