I watched Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” last night. I found it disturbing, but I would highly recommend that others see it. I recognize that there have been complaints contesting the factual accuracy and slant of the film. Why should this be surprising and, if true, why would the complaint be unique to Michael Moore? By way of comparison, I checked my audible.com current best seller list – “My Life”, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “Plan of Attack”, “Dude, Where’s My Country”, “Against All Enemies”, “Hegemony of Survival”, “Sleeping With the Devil”, “Deliver Us From Evil” were within the top 16 NonFiction Best Sellers. Any bets that these books have somewhat different stories to tell?
My take on the core message of “Fahrenheit 9/11”? There is a hidden agenda and hidden players behind current events. The players include an assortment of political leaders from several countries and the agenda involves huge financial opportunities for these players and the companies or groups they represent. In addition, the human cost of unwittingly implementing this agenda falls to military personnel nearly exclusively from lower income groups.
What does any of this have to do with education or technology? Perhaps a great deal. As technology provides greater access to an increasing amount of information, information literacy seems an essential skill. This concern is often presented as – you can’t believe everything you access through an unedited medium such as the Internet. However, we are also learning that you can’t believe everything politicians, the news media, etc. tell us. One of the first skills in evaluating web resources – who authored this page and what does he/she have to gain by you accepting the information the page presents. Perhaps careful consideration of public information sources should always have been in order, but immediate access to very different perspectives now makes this reality very apparent (see list of best sellers provided above). Awareness of contrasting positions is a good thing.
