People- all people- love giving their input on just about everything, whether or not they have an informed opinion. So today's (admittedly random) post looks briefly at whom we trust. In my view, there are four categories- critics/scholars, populace, family/friends, and individuals- and each is described a bit more below. To give it some context, I'm using books as an example.
Critics/Scholars
Critics (or scholars)- the so-called experts in a given field. In theory, their supremely-informed input should have the most weight. How often does it? I have no idea, and does it matter? The critics themselves often fail to agree with each other. So, while it's possible to pick up trends as chosen by a group of scholars, it will never be possible to get unanimous recommendations.
In 2012, a collection of scholars released a revised list of 1001 books you must read. Peruse this list; how many works do you know? At all? I was surprised- I consider myself reasonably well-read, but there were many selections here that I didn't even recognize. It reveals something about this group (or just about me, perhaps): critics can easily live apart from a common reality and wall up in an ivory tower, choosing selections that may well have merit in exclusive circles, but are unappreciated by the general populace. Speaking of the masses . . .
Populace
The populace- a majority of us have to be right, right? It's easy to poke holes in that theory, but let's face it; it's how the world (and most democracies) work. "Might makes right." We go the way the majority of us want to go.
In 2003, the BBC conducted "the big read"- a survey of what the general populace reads. A lot of people responded- 750,000- making it the biggest sampling of public reading tastes ever conducted.
The Big Read list of the top 200 books is here. Notice how different that list is from the critics list above. Many selections appear on both lists; but the overlap is not what I'd consider substantial. It shows us that what most people enjoy consuming isn't what experts recommend we consume. Another example is here- where they compare critics and readers' top 100 book lists side-by-side. Just food for thought.
Family/Friends
Ahhh, family and friends. Often neither experts nor a majority, we certainly give them more weight, don't we? Why? It comes down to familiarity. You (probably) don't know any professional critics, and you don't know the majority of people in the world, but you do know your family and friends, and hence you tend to trust them more than other, more experienced perspectives. Familiarity trumps much- something to think about, as it can lead us in a really good- or really bad- direction.
Individual
Last but not least: individuals. People you don't know from Adam, but you see their suggestions, too, on the Internet, television, or wherever. This is, to me, the most intriguing group of people, because we give them so much attention and we don't even know who they are. How much fear-mongering and ill-advised (or just wrong) information is spread due to individuals spouting nonsense, and others following them blindly? I don't want to know, because I suspect the answer will startle or sadden me.
At the end of the day, though, we're all individuals, so we're all in this category. We all have areas of great knowledge- and no knowledge- and we all share information based on (in turn) knowledge or ignorance. You never know what you're going to get by blindly following an unknown individual.
The Point
Why am I sharing this? Partly because I find it interesting. We trust so many people in our lives, and seldom reflect on the source of information we hold as true. The other reason has to do with my reading list. As I blogged here, a few years ago I created a British Reading List (hereafter BRL). I created that from a variety of sources- "best of" lists, personal items of interest, random selections at tourist attraction gift shops- and will soon finish reading everything on it. My BRL changed many times over the last two years, and as I wind it down, I was curious to see just how many of my selections made the lists of others. But, as I looked over top selections by critics, the populace, friends/family, and individuals, I soon saw that in the end, we all pretty much do what we want. I know I did. I have that human need to feel my choices validated by others- which is why I investigated this- but if I cared that much I would have relied solely on others' lists in the first place, which I didn't, so I must not be overly concerned about it, which just shows that human need to do what we want, regardless of what others think. I ramble.
In the end, I think the following quote an appropriate summary:
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. (Proverbs 15:22)
Be it something trivial like choosing the right book, or something of immense importance like developing a good worldview, it's important to gather information from a variety of sources- and categories of sources- to increase our chance of "getting it right." In the end, though, our results cannot be blamed on others; what we have is of our own making, based on what we choose to take from the sources we consult.
As a final note on book lists, there are several websites devoted to lists- even sites that are nothing but lists of lists (here or here, where you can peruse hundreds of award lists or "definitive" lists of books). If nothing else, it's interesting to see what people from all walks of life and expertise consider worthy of your reading time.
Critics/Scholars
In 2012, a collection of scholars released a revised list of 1001 books you must read. Peruse this list; how many works do you know? At all? I was surprised- I consider myself reasonably well-read, but there were many selections here that I didn't even recognize. It reveals something about this group (or just about me, perhaps): critics can easily live apart from a common reality and wall up in an ivory tower, choosing selections that may well have merit in exclusive circles, but are unappreciated by the general populace. Speaking of the masses . . .
Populace
In 2003, the BBC conducted "the big read"- a survey of what the general populace reads. A lot of people responded- 750,000- making it the biggest sampling of public reading tastes ever conducted.
The Big Read list of the top 200 books is here. Notice how different that list is from the critics list above. Many selections appear on both lists; but the overlap is not what I'd consider substantial. It shows us that what most people enjoy consuming isn't what experts recommend we consume. Another example is here- where they compare critics and readers' top 100 book lists side-by-side. Just food for thought.
Family/Friends
Individual
At the end of the day, though, we're all individuals, so we're all in this category. We all have areas of great knowledge- and no knowledge- and we all share information based on (in turn) knowledge or ignorance. You never know what you're going to get by blindly following an unknown individual.
The Point
Why am I sharing this? Partly because I find it interesting. We trust so many people in our lives, and seldom reflect on the source of information we hold as true. The other reason has to do with my reading list. As I blogged here, a few years ago I created a British Reading List (hereafter BRL). I created that from a variety of sources- "best of" lists, personal items of interest, random selections at tourist attraction gift shops- and will soon finish reading everything on it. My BRL changed many times over the last two years, and as I wind it down, I was curious to see just how many of my selections made the lists of others. But, as I looked over top selections by critics, the populace, friends/family, and individuals, I soon saw that in the end, we all pretty much do what we want. I know I did. I have that human need to feel my choices validated by others- which is why I investigated this- but if I cared that much I would have relied solely on others' lists in the first place, which I didn't, so I must not be overly concerned about it, which just shows that human need to do what we want, regardless of what others think. I ramble.
In the end, I think the following quote an appropriate summary:
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed. (Proverbs 15:22)
Be it something trivial like choosing the right book, or something of immense importance like developing a good worldview, it's important to gather information from a variety of sources- and categories of sources- to increase our chance of "getting it right." In the end, though, our results cannot be blamed on others; what we have is of our own making, based on what we choose to take from the sources we consult.
As a final note on book lists, there are several websites devoted to lists- even sites that are nothing but lists of lists (here or here, where you can peruse hundreds of award lists or "definitive" lists of books). If nothing else, it's interesting to see what people from all walks of life and expertise consider worthy of your reading time.
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