I am no Nostradamus, but I predict that there will be a revolution very soon in the United States. This will not be like any other revolution that has occurred in human history. This revolution will not be fought with guns, sticks or even words. It will be fought in the mind of every single American, whether they are aware of it or not. In this revolution, the majority of participants will do absolutely nothing and thereby side with the incumbent power. This revolution will be a war for truth. This revolution will be between those that accept information as fact, and those that accept information as biased and seek to find the truth. The first step to beginning this revolution is to realize that everyone is biased except for me. The first step to thinking for yourself is to realize that information and knowledge is biased and almost certainly wrong.
One thing that very few people realize is that every news source is biased to some extent. Those that control it decide what is contained in it. In fact, everyone is biased. Let me repeat that for those that didn’t get it, the media prints what it wants to print, not the truth. Sometimes the two are very close, but never the same. The Mustang Daily, The New York Times, The LA Times, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, USA Today and every other medium of information travel is biased. You should be smart enough to not consider the Internet a unbiased source of information.
When the government decides to not reveal all facts to the American public for security or convenience or whatever, there is an outrage and demands for resignations and impeachment. When the media decides not to tell a particular story, no one knows about it. What has happened, what studies have occurred, what discoveries have been made that the media has chosen to not report?
Another source of information that is pertinent here is college professors. Most professors are qualified to teach and do an excellent job informing students. However, there are a couple of major flaws with this type of system of information distribution. One, not all professors are qualified. That is why I sometimes ask a professor for their credentials before registering for a class. Second, most students choose to interpret their professor’s words as truth. However good a professor is, they are always biased. When a competent professor teaches, they do so from their own opinions and their own perception of reality. One example: Every university in California has at least a 1-1 ratio for liberal professors against conservative professors. That means that nowhere does conservatives outnumber liberals, but in the great majority of institutes of higher learning the liberals outweigh the conservatives. Regardless of your political orientation, you must recognize the obvious bias and potentially unhealthy imbalance this creates.
History is full of examples of scientists and educated gentry who accepted what they heard as truth. The more notable historical figures heard the same things but chose to disagree and discover for themselves if it was true or not. The most remarkable people sought to discover the truth; however, they realized that the knowledge they found was not ultimate truth but only a stepping stone so that a future mind might discover something more. What you decide to do with the knowledge you learn will determine what side of the upcoming revolution you will be on because there will be no neutrals.
William Stevenson is a statistics senior and a Mustang Daily guest columnist.