"A Forest Fire of Ignorance"

One of my favorite editorial cartoonists is Pat Oliphant, a man who draws cartoons that are invariably dead accurate and brilliantly clever, like this one ...

He also has a gift for the perfect turn of phrase, as in this interview which recently appeared in The Atlantic. In the interview, he's asked whether the influence of political cartoons has changed during his career; he answers yes, for a number of reasons, but the one that really hit home to me is summed up in this passage:

"There’s another important factor [for the decline in influence of cartoonists]: education. The frames of reference have disappeared. You have to have a frame of reference to appreciate a cartoon, to know what is being caricatured. People don’t do the reading of news anymore that would give them the background to know what the cartoon is about; you can’t refer to accepted wisdom or variations of accepted wisdom. We are in a forest fire of ignorance."

"A forest fire of ignorance" - I don't think I can say it any better.

As I've often moaned in this space, we live in an era when people don't think any more - they parrot slogans. They don't read the news, they don't think about implications, they don't discuss issues with minds open to new and different ideas. They mindlessly swallow whole the latest bilge they heard from a shouting head on Faux News or any of a thousand intellectually empty talk shows.

Too bad it's not this easy ...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo