Trivializing Truth?

Yet another post about an article link...

I love the Washington Post. When I was in college we got a sweet deal for a student rate for the paper. I think we paid something crazy like $100 for the paper to be delivered every day for an ENTIRE YEAR. How I miss those days! There's nothing better than a nice warm drink and bagel and the Sunday (or really anyday) Post. When we had our current local paper delivered we ended up paying more than that, and let's just say the local paper isn't quite the Washington Post...

Anyways, all that to say I miss the Post and have to console myself with surfing the paper's web page for articles, one of which I'm writing in response to so now I'll get back to what I was intending to post about...

I thought the above article was fantastic. "Mr. Loretta" and I get into all kinds of debates about Wikipedia. He is a HUGE fan and always using it to find information about whatever has captured his interest at that point in time. The English teacher in me is absolutely appalled by it. I don't let my students use it as a source. There's too much of a chance for error. It is too unreliable. I'm one of those "weird" teachers that are mentioned in the article. You know, one of the ones who makes students actually go to the library to do research for their research papers. I guess I find it ironic that my husband, who is a physicist because he thinks physics is fundamental, because it is the closest thing to "truth" that he believes there is, loves Wikipedia and the internet's ability to provide answers. He is constantly talking about how much he wants a cell phone that will enable him to access Wikipedia at any time in order to find an answer to a question he has or in order to resolve any pending arguments he may have. I guess it just seems illogical (bizarre? surreal?) to me that he goes to Wikipedia to provide him with the truth. It's almost as if "truth" has become so commodified in our society that we are desensitized to the fact that "truth" is, well, not always true or correct, and Mr. Loretta (or Optimus, as he requested I call him when I informed him of his bloggy pseudonym--someone *still* loves Transformers a little bit too much) and his adoration of and devotion to Wikipedia is the perfect example of this desensitization.

The internet has made so many things easier in our society. It's wonderful that, although we live so very far away from our families, we can share photographs and videos with one another (although that means I should update the family blog more often...). It's great to be able to email and message those distant family members and friends in order to keep in touch, just as it's a great tool for getting in touch with those friends here in town to arrange various get-togethers or to discuss different things uninterrupted by the important smaller people in our lives.

But at the same time, the internet has made things so much more difficult. I think about the many many email forwards my grandmother sends me vilifying the candidate I'm most likely to support in the presidential election: He's a Muslim! He took his oath of office on the Koran! He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance or put his hand over his heart or look at the flag while doing so! He won't wear that damn flag lapel pin. The list could go on and on. It's become so easy for anyone and everyone to publish their own version of the "truth" that reality often is obscured behind layers and layers of inaccuracies.

And, therein lies the problem with Wikipedia. Anyone can go in and edit a subject to have it say whatever they want it to say. Granted, there are moderators and editors who review the entries and flag or remove inaccurate information, but the fact of the matter is that the sheer volume of entries makes it impossible for said editors or moderators to remove the faulty information in a timely fashion unless they are already keeping a close eye on that particular entry at that particular time. In fact, when I was in graduate school, one of my professors altered the entry on a famous poet with false information. It was up for nearly a week before it was flagged or taken down.

So, taking all of this into consideration, one has to wonder whether Wikipedia, and the Internet for that matter, are beneficial for our society or if they are actually contributing to the trivialization and commodification of truth.

I, for one, certainly don't have an answer.