As someone who loves languages, there is a famous theory known as the input hypothesis, that is we learn languages primarily through input. This method emphasizes listening and reading (inputs) vs writing and speaking (output).
Language is pretty amazing. Humans are able to pick up the nuances of accents, grammatical rules etc etc even from the days prior to the internet and without formal education.
Just a few days ago, it got me thinking, could this also apply to our political belief? Are our political belief just determined by the media that we consume? Or are we getting the facts and making our own independent conclusion? Speaking for the general population of course, there are always special cases.
If we are taking stands based on the media that we consume, then what good is democracy? For that one person that is able to control the media would control us. We are then not exercising our own independent choice even if we think we are independent. Our actions had already been programmed by our media.
See? Then democracy is really useless. Ultimately, we want to make the correct decision. The theory for democracy is that the different ideas would battle out in the marketplace, so the best idea wins, and this best idea is also be the correct decision. Making the correct decision benefits everyone as a whole in a Hume like utilitarianism sense even those who originally disagreed with the idea. But if we make decisions based on the media that we consume, then our decisions are really controlled by the media which is a handful of individuals. Then what benefit is this.
Language is pretty amazing. Humans are able to pick up the nuances of accents, grammatical rules etc etc even from the days prior to the internet and without formal education.
Just a few days ago, it got me thinking, could this also apply to our political belief? Are our political belief just determined by the media that we consume? Or are we getting the facts and making our own independent conclusion? Speaking for the general population of course, there are always special cases.
If we are taking stands based on the media that we consume, then what good is democracy? For that one person that is able to control the media would control us. We are then not exercising our own independent choice even if we think we are independent. Our actions had already been programmed by our media.
See? Then democracy is really useless. Ultimately, we want to make the correct decision. The theory for democracy is that the different ideas would battle out in the marketplace, so the best idea wins, and this best idea is also be the correct decision. Making the correct decision benefits everyone as a whole in a Hume like utilitarianism sense even those who originally disagreed with the idea. But if we make decisions based on the media that we consume, then our decisions are really controlled by the media which is a handful of individuals. Then what benefit is this.
