My dad was explaining to me this past summer how before the internet, cable TV, and social media, there was no way to spread news as quickly as there is today. You were a farmer and you didn't know what was going on anywhere else in the world until days or sometimes even weeks after the fact. This meant you had less time to worry and feel hopeless or guilty for not feeling hopeless because of the 7:00 news story, because there was no such thing! The news was not on a schedule. By the time you got the news it was too late to worry. What happened happened and there was nothing you could do. The article "Cheerful Despair" touches on how modern news impacts us, and it transported me back to that conversation with my dad and then back to the pre-internet, telegram era when people seemed more content and calm instead of constantly stressed and anxious like they seem today. Could that be because of the way news has been amplified over the decades? The article really got me wondering; Would we be happier with less world knowledge?
As I contemplated this question I realized how bizarre it sounded according to modern society's standards. With the way education is coveted and put on a pedestal today, how could I and why would I possibly question if more knowledge actually makes us more depressed? Education is supposed to be the golden ticket to a successful (by the world’s standards) life, but is that the same thing as a happy one? Is the knowledge it provides providing happiness as well as success?
I pondered those questions and I realized why I couldn't come to a clear, decisive answer at first. My original question was too broad and I was trying to compare old standards to new ones. In the times of predominant farming, education was not coveted like it is today. It wasn't required; it wasn’t even expected. Kids were expected to work the farm and put their youth to good use to help their family make money. Now, because education is coveted, knowledge is coveted which means people want access to every possible news source they can find so they can be "informed." The problem is that the news often only informs people about the chaos, evil, and tragedies of the world. It's not that we would be happier with less knowledge, it's that logically we would be happier with less depressing knowledge that we acquire but then can do absolutely nothing about - that we have no control over. So the question I should've been asking is not if we would be happier with less knowledge, but if we would be happier with less news. I think the answer is yes - at least until modern news is reformed to consistently show a more equal balance of good and bad. But if that's the case, then I've created a whole new set of potential questions. For starters, what constitutes “good” and “bad”? The world has been constantly bombarded with so much misfortune lately that I think it may have to redefine its now warped definitions of those.
Sincerely,
The Time Traveler
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