Joe Rogan, a professional comedian, hosts an entertaining podcast which, on occasion, has been a forum for misinformation dangerous to the public. Yale scholar, Heather Cox Richardson, has dedicated her adult life to the study of American History and daily posts informed commentary on current affairs. Joe Rogan earns $100,000,000 (rumored twice that) from Spotify and is followed by millions. Dr. Richardson, on the other hand, posts for free and is followed by a few thousand. Joe gives voice to the honestly curious, but his guests have been known to validate worlds inhabited by the anti-intellectual, the alienated, and the paranoid. Richardson give voice to the knowledgeable and to those seeking informed knowledge.
Why should we care?
Mature, thinking adults are not unaware of our species almost limitless potential for depravity. What order, freedom, and peace we in the West enjoy is a direct result of our intellectual heritage and the public institutions derived from that heritage, corruptible or inept as those institutions may be. The knowledge and ideas gained by those dedicated to studying the sciences and the humanities, like Richardson, over time created those public institutions, often in the face of much resistance, or corruption, from organized wealth, organized religion, an over-weening military---and, yes, too often resistance and corruption from misguided scientists and intellectuals, themselves.
The Founders would not have created a system of government by consent of the governed, by consent of We The People, if they did not first have an abiding faith in the human spirit, a faith (in principle, at least) in the notion that we the people possess the creativity and reasoning skills, and even the innate moral conscience, to govern ourselves. It is an exceptional idea, rare in human history. And America is an exceptional nation because of it. Like the Founders, I believe that humans do have the creativity, reasoning skills, and moral conscience to govern ourselves, the question is: do we pro-actively and responsibly engage ourselves in those skills necessary to govern ourselves? Or do we become numb and obsequious to those who would exploit us to accrue notoriety, private wealth, and/or power? Do we passively allow Joe Rogan's guests (and their far more offensive, ubiquitous ilk across all media) to form our opinions for us? or do we take on the hard work of pro-actively forming our own opinions based on the insights of dedicated scientists and scholars who, in principle at least, work to inform us of the facts?
The point here is not to dissuade anyone from listening to Joe Rogan. Censorship is an insult to democracy for the above suggested reasons. The point here is to convince people that securing freedom demands much more than a strong military. Dictators throughout history have had strong military. Vladimir Putin has a strong military. Freedom demands a responsible citizenry committed to, and engaged in, the difficult but necessary intellectual work it takes to maintain this “nation of laws, not men”, and a basic trust in the public institutions created to support and promote such. Centuries of human intellectual and creative effort went into forming the basis from which we derive what economic and political freedoms we choose to empower. And I contend that Western governments, Western democracies, public education especially, and many other public institutions and policies, designed to serve We The People, represent human triumphs which, though not immune from critique or corruption, upon any meaningful historical assessment, upon any meaningful comparison of today’s world powers, deserve our esteem and trust, not derision from society’s peanut gallery of self-serving, self-proclaimed experts.
You can follow Heather Cox Richardson of Facebook and other sites.
I heard Chris Hedges, in a recorded webinar on media censorship, say that we all need to study Marx, Gramsci and a couple of others so that we understand the fundamentals. - Not because they are any kind of bible, but because the questions they grappled with will keep us focused on the core questions before us. I feel a synchronicity with what you say above- maybe something between deeply intellectual people. https://www.codepink.org/m212022