Misinformation

Listening to a radio four programme this morning, in one segment there was a Woman living in Milton Keynes being interviewed about the current zeitgeist there. Various topics were covered from Brexit to Covid-19 vaccinations via "mental health" etc. It particularly peaked my interest because her answers and reasoning were chilling (and depressing) to my ears, jaw-droppingly so.

From her accent and background (a refugee from inner London in the mid-60s) I'll assume that she hails from a working-class background (probably not dissimilar to mine) based on the dates I'd also assume that she's in her 60s at least, probably slightly older. Just taking the three main topics of conversation, Brexit, Mental Health and Vaccination her answers were as follows,

• She voted leave
• She claimed her mental health was poor, similarly her family
• She is anti-vaccination

Of course it's not possible to draw any conclusions from a data sample of one, but I think we can justifiably pose the question, are these positions linked in some way?

Her justification for voting leave was confused and inarticulate, this isn't uncommon in my experience, people typically quote something to do with "control", something to do with "immigration", something  to do with straight Bananas etc. Interestingly, it became clear as it progressed that all the reasons quoted were simply a regurgitation  of the slogans of the long discredited pro-Brexit campaign (NHS £350 million bus etc.) Also when asked how she might vote today on Brexit she said definitely "stay", her reasoning being that Boris is "messing everything up" (presumably she believed there was a "good" way to navigate Brexit?). She said that lock-down had been particularly tough, nothing to do, lack of socialization etc. She claimed that because of this, i.e. personal inconvenience, she was anti-lockdown. On the vaccination front she was against it, claiming that the vaccines were "experimental" and too dangerous, she has not had one, the reasoning seemed to come straight from the propaganda anti-vaxxers on Facebook or Twitter, I won't bother to explain why this view is false but suffice to say vaccines have been used now for nearly 300 years now, hardly "experimental".

Of course, I'm not suggesting for a second that someone can't hold all of these views if they wish, freedom of conscience insists on it, but it's clear to any observer that all these positions have a key ingredient in common and that is misinformation. They are all based on a determination to ignore and/or misunderstand facts and to formulate opinions on simplistic, lowest common denominator propaganda from uninformed, malicious or manipulative sources (i.e. people like Cummings). Credulity seems to be the thread that joins many such people, a willingness to believe (selectively) the things that suit a parochial self-interest whilst ignoring facts that don't, a lack of skepticism, an unwillingness to fact-check or investigate claims, especially when they agree with an established position.

I'm sure that this "condition" is a Human constant and seems to be an ever popular one to aspire to, the rise of social-media, the dumbing down of society or the prevalence of powerful and pervasive misinformation on the channels that the mass of the populous consumes. It's something that's a common theme in the battle between secularism and science on the one hand and religion and supernaturalism on the other but it's clear from this radio programme that there's a more general problem at large, i.e. how may we (i.e. our society and our institutions) convince more people of the value of evidence and reason over emotion and self-interest.