Ignorance is not funny anymore

Over at Motherboard, Joshua Kopstein writes a brilliant piece about the current SOPA mark-up hearings clusterfuck entitled "Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How the Internet Works". In it, he identifies a key problem with the legislative process:

Key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don’t understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it’s not clear whether they even want to.

…

[T]he chilling takeaway of this whole debacle was the irrefutable air of anti-intellectualism; that inescapable absurdity that we have members of Congress voting on a technical bill who do not posses any technical knowledge on the subject and do not find it imperative to recognize those who do.

This used to be funny, but now it’s really just terrifying. We’re dealing with legislation that will completely change the face of the internet and free speech for years to come. Yet here we are, still at the mercy of underachieving Congressional know-nothings that have more in common with the slacker students sitting in the back of math class than elected representatives. The fact that some of the people charged with representing us must be dragged kicking and screaming out of their complacency on such matters is no longer endearing—it’s just pathetic and sad.

Of course, this sort of behavior is not limited to just the current House debate on SOPA. We see it time and time again with science-based policy—creationism, global warming denialism, and anti-vaccination campaigns being some of the more prominent examples.

This is not to say that ignorance, in and of itself, is a bad thing. We're all ignorant about many things, and ignorance can be useful when it leads us to ask the right questions.

But somewhere along the way, our political culture developed to a point where ignorance and a staunch, if not defiantly proud, refusal to do anything about it was not only accepted but celebrated as well. Now, I understand how letting a small group of experts decide "best" policy seems contrary to our collective notion of democracy, and I'll be the first to admit of groups of expert have been wrong before. What I don't understand, though, is why such mistakes in the past means that all expert opinion should be discounted and denigrated. One of the consequences of admitting ignorance should be letting those that should and do know better inform and guide our decision making. Instead, we increasingly seem to reward those who happily stick their finger in their ears and scream "I'm not listening" with (for example) political office, and no good can come from that.

I appreciate the efforts by activists like Lawrence Lessig to reduce to corrupting influence of money on our political processes. But until we find a way to remove the "I reject your facts and substitute my own reality" and "all points of views are equally valid" attitudes that pervade our (political) culture, I don't see any real way to make substantive changes.