HS analysis|It is worrying if people who are considered smart emphasize that everything is uncertain.
Supposition nowadays, criticality is important. Young people are taught that you shouldn’t believe everything you read, and especially in the age of the internet, you should be suspicious of information that spreads quickly.
This is true.
A skeptical attitude also belongs to the principles of journalism, according to which one must try to verify information from several sources. Skepticism, on the other hand, means that a person cannot even find certain information.
However, skepticism can also be used for good – maliciously or unintentionally.
The intention can be good: wouldn’t it basically be good to think about everything with your own brain?
At its worst, the sowing of suspicion can be seen in the propaganda carried out by a state actor, such as Russia.
Fresh an example of that is the Russian Rossija 1 -television channel’s propaganda-filled report President by Alexander Stubb from a trip to Åland. In it, people introduced as Åland people made harsh claims about the Ukrainian refugees on the island, and it was suggested that the demilitarization of Åland was being dismantled.
Russia was repeated in the TV program sowing a propaganda claim that Ukrainians were Nazis. Russia is still living through the Soviet-era war against Nazi Germany, with a reinvented enemy. At the latest, the victory over the Nazis is remembered every year on Victory Day.
At times, Ukraine is portrayed as a more helpless actor controlled by Western countries.
It doesn’t really matter whether the reader believes that Ukraine is a ruthless Nazi state or a helpless wimp. The purpose of propaganda is to confuse and overwhelm, not to be consistent.
Propaganda researchers have called the strategy a “firehose of falsehood”.
Suspicion can also spread quickly on social media. It’s not always about intentional misdeeds.
A taste was seen, for example, during the Olympics. International boxing association IBA of Russian origin, excluded from the Olympics tried to sow doubt about the gender of two female boxers.
From an Algerian Imane from Khelif pictures were circulated in which “only questions were asked” about whether she was a woman. It didn’t help that the committee organizing the Olympics (let alone Khelifi’s father) publicly confirmed the matter.
Earlier in the summer, the Minister of Finance Riikka Purra (ps) did social media updatewho connected the stabbing in Oulu to street gangs right after the events.
He seemed to raise questions. Is the media telling the truth now? Does the researcher or authorities have a secret agenda?
The next day, it turned out that it was not a street gang, but that the suspect had a background in far-right movements, according to the police.
Similarly, rumor mills have been seen after acts of violence, for example in Sweden and in Britain.
British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell already treated skepticism with a certain reservation decades ago.
When skepticism appears as the only option, it paralyzes, says the Nobel laureate in literature.
Russell, who also wrote common sense essays, was concerned that smart people emphasize that everything is uncertain. The risk is that only those who don’t even recognize that their opinions are completely absurd are self-confident.
Skepticism is misguided if none of the information provided by institutions is trusted except to be sure.
There are huge amounts of false, contradictory claims on the internet, and they are also manufactured on purpose.
In addition, Russell’s thinking asks, does an overly skeptical attitude create an excuse not to intervene?
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