Joe Everyman has viewed Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, but he has also recently read Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. Susan Everywoman watched the film Vera-Drake and has also seen a mother on Oprah crying about how much she regretted having an abortion. Timmy the Paperboy has perused Michael Moore's compilation of soldiers' letters from Iraq but also watches Fox News on a daily basis.
All of these good citizens seem to have attained a balanced diet of information from opposing viewpoints on various issues.
But while they have read into both the arguments and the counter-arguments of the issues, they forget that there is still more to the picture: the counter-counter-argument.
Those who believe in global warming often parade a "hockey stick" graph around showing how much the Earth's temperature has risen within the last few centuries. Skeptics point out that the graph omits the Medieval Warm Period, an era when world temperatures were putatively as warm as they are today. Some might hear this and think that the argument stops there, but believers can easily state that a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) report declared the Medieval Warm Period argument to be fallacious. A skeptic might reply by suggesting that the global warming claims are part of a vast socialist conspiracy or that the benefit to the planet of climate change planet have been understated.
The debate on Iraq is ripe with other sides to the story. A supporter may contend that the invasion incited Libya to abandon its nuclear aspirations. Someone might counter that Libya was never very much of a threat in the first place, or that it was actually President Bill Clinton's actions which influenced the country's decision. It'd be simple to immediately assume that the counter-point was correct, but a supporter would probably proceed to list Libya's terrorist-supporting activities prior to 1994.
This doesn't only apply to politics. Anyone who has read Plato's Gorgias dialogue can testify to the multitude of arguments and counter-arguments contained within - that's why the work demands to read as a whole.
Society tends to forget that there are often more than two points of view. Abortion is frequently narrowed down to two perspectives: either the operation is horrible and should be illegal, or it is reasonable and should be allowed. But isn't it possible to think that abortion is heinous but has aspects which can be beneficial to society? After all, some studies have found that legalized abortion reduces crime. Not everyone believes that morality should be legislated.
Years ago, people would have to search through stacks at the library to acquire esoteric information, but today, almost everything which human beings need to know is right at our fingertips. Given the abundance of accessible data, it would be a waste if Joe Everyman, Susan Everywoman, and Timmy the Paperboy simply let it linger instead of investigating the array of perspectives inherent to every issue.
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