The Choice

In The Republic (380 BC), Plato wonders if the average citizen of a society is the right person to be making the decisions about who should be making the decisions for a society. And this has been a question we (at the very least, Western Civilizations) have grappled with since then. In Walter Lippmann's 1922 book Public Opinion, he states that, in the face the ever-increasing complexity of the world, especially relative to the democracy that our Founding Fathers created, average citizens navigate the world through stereotypes (about everything, including the government, environment, medicine, etc), which are fed, in large part, by the media. (This is back in 1922!). If you look at the ever increasing polarization of stereotypes fed by the ever-widening gap between media outlets, you can see how perfectly rational people can be led to vastly different conclusions about the world. I think that "our" job is to close that gap. That means that I actually read posts (and shared articles) of people that I do not agree with, and I actually expect them to consider my counterpoints. I am not sure if this expectation is realistic, but what choice do I have?