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Key points
- Misinformation results in a dangerous erosion of trust because it makes it very hard for people to share a common set of agreed upun facts.
- Without trust in one another our country will fracture and fragmnet creating a vicious circle leading to the decay of our democracy.
- Misinformation is very deadly and highly "contagious."
FDA chief Robert Califf recently stated the leading cause of death in the United States is misinformation and disinformation. Both disinformation and misinformation are false or inaccurate claims, and statements deliberately intended to mislead or deceive. It is not the same as simple ignorance, merely a lack of knowledge, understanding, or facts. Real facts; not “alternative facts.“
Moreover, Califf believes misinformation is a leading cause of lowered life expectancy in the United States; an unprecedented statistic since longevity records have been kept.
What’s worse is that misinformation creates and foments a dangerous atmosphere of distrust among people because it is corrosive to the foundation of agreed-upon values, truths, and facts.
Indeed, William Falk, the editor-in-chief of The Week magazine (June 3, 2022), brilliantly and succinctly stated that distrust has been and remains the engine driving the discord and dysfunction of our nation’s current state. And has led to no less than 900,000 of the million-plus casualties of the Covid pandemic in the United States.
Consider that Australia has experienced 1/10 the percentage of deaths from Covid as the United States. That is, for every person who died from Covid in Australia, ten have died in the United States. A sobering and highly disturbing statistical fact.
The reason for the dramatic disparity among Covid casualties in Australia compared with the United States is mostly a matter of national trust. It seems Australians trust their medical establishment. Australians trust their government and leadership. But most importantly, it seems that Australians trust one another. A trifecta of trust that is sorely lacking in the United States, where internecine tribalism and mutual disdain is currently defining our nation and social landscape.
Falk believes, “We have self sorted and retreated to our own worlds, our own websites, social media feeds, cable networks and communities. Separated by impenetrable walls of tribal loyalty we cannot come together to solve our problems even when they are killing us.“
Tragically, this schism of basic and mutually beneficial values and trust extends far beyond the calamity of Covid. Indeed, beyond the fact we can’t trust people to wear masks in a pandemic because many insist they have a right to infect others, there are equally evil societal ills that permeate our country due to an erosion of trust.
For instance, we cannot trust that our children can go to school without being shot. We cannot trust our government to pass common-sense gun safety laws because some people staunchly defend their right to have militaristic assault weapons. We cannot trust our religious leaders to protect our children from sexual predation, and we cannot trust the veracity and integrity of a great deal of news media. Hence, we cannot trust our safety in churches, synagogues, mosques, supermarkets, or movie theaters—to name just a few venues in which we are all sitting ducks for a murderous maniac to open fire upon.
Unfortunately, the wise and socially beneficial words of William Falk will be heard by a very small minority of people. And my reiteration and exposition of some of his ideas will be heard by even fewer. But more troubling is the likelihood that if individuals heard these words from an opposing worldview, they would have as much impact as a sneeze in a hurricane.
To come full circle, misinformation is simply deadly propaganda that sows distrust among people. And misinformation has never had an opportunity to spread more contagiously than even Covid in the modern era. This, of course, is due to the dual nature of tools like a knife or the Internet. Used constructively, a knife can cut and chop things like vegetables.
But the same tool, if wielded as a weapon, can do lethal harm. Similarly, the Internet has amazing beneficial uses. But its use as a means for disseminating disinformation, misinformation, false facts, and sowing distrust is weaponizing it.
A devastating weapon of mass destruction born out of distorted and corrupted information technology. A weapon that has literally spread disease, suffering, and death on a massive scale. Even worse, it has corroded the very foundation of our trust in science, medicine, once venerated institutions, government agencies, and our very leadership at the highest levels. But worst of all, it has ruptured the vital trust in one another a society needs to function and remain healthy. Because, like it or not, we live in an intricately interdependent nation that is glued together by mutual trust.
Without trust, there can be no cohesion, and there will be fragmentation without cohesion. And fragmentation leads to increasing divisiveness and discord. This, in turn, makes it more difficult to agree upon a set of common values, beliefs, and facts. A vicious circle that will spiral downward with ever-increasing velocity because the Internet is corrupted more and more into a weapon for disseminating dangerous misinformation. Misinformation corrodes the foundation of trust in our democracy and one another and leads to tragically avoidable suffering and death on a literally global scale.
Let us hope that god—or random, unpredictable, and unknowable factors—will help us because it seems clear that we cannot trust our leaders to do so since many of them, too, buy into and spread the deadly misinformation that is killing our citizens and destroying our country.
Remember: Think well, Act well, Feel well, Be well!
Copyright 2022 Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D.
