Republic.com 2.0-- Chapter 2
Chapter two discusses, amongst other things, which places have been defined as public forums. It is interesting that even though airports and certain parking areas are partially funded by the government, they are not considered a public forum. It seems that people are need to go out into public less and less. Because of the Internet people can shop, go to school, find music, and even socialize without ever going out into public where they might see people and hear things without their own filtering. The problem with this, Sunstein expresses, is that when people filter everything they here see and do so thoroughly there will be no effective debating which is necessary to democracy. By only hearing what they want to, people are left completely ignorant to other subjects. Sometimes people will chance upon a newspaper article or channel where something they never knew they were interested in will show up. In a “utopian” world where everything is filtered to suit you, people will never chance upon something new or different. They will simply pick one view and read everything to strengthen that view. An effective argument or stance must be made by somebody who understands the other side. For instance it would be very foolish for a lawyer to go to court without having looked into what the opposing team might say. In virtually all debate this same idea holds to be true. The best intellectuals are well rounded in their education.
Without educated citizens to debate, a democracy will fail. Not only must people know how to argue their side, but also be able to listen to and consider the opposing side. This is important that in a democracy people work towards choosing the best option, therefore the people must listen to the facts rather than just “root for their team” so to say. When people use filtration and become interested only in hearing one side, democracy is therefore endangered.
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