Mark Twain on Bob Ingersoll

by Gary Berg-Cross


It is always a pleasure to read Mark (Sam C) Twain and The Mark Twain Project makes that easier than ever with many of his letters and 3 volumes of his later in life Autobiography online.

One very pleasant surprise for me was to read on Twain commenting humorously but insight-fully about Bob (Robert) Ingersoll. There's a section in part 1 of his Autobiography where he talks about his 3 viewing General Grant in 1879, when Grant  had just returned from a journey around the world, and now was to be feasted in Chicago by the veterans of the Army of the Tennessee in what was called The Great Banquet.

He makes himself the audience (although he was to be the final speaker) viewing a contest among the best speakers:

"The speakers were of a rare celebrity and ability.....Colonel Vilas was to respond to a toast, and also Colonel Ingersoll, the silver-tongued infidel, who had begun life in Illinois and was exceedingly popular there. Vilas was from Wisconsin and was very famous as an orator. He had prepared himself superbly for this occasion.

He was about the first speaker on the list of fifteen toasts, and Bob Ingersoll was the ninth."

Twain notes that prior speakers, like Gen Vilas make it hard on Bob Ingersoll who rises to the occasion. You can read that long section in http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200551h.html

Below is what Twain wrote in a more direct report to his lifelong friend and co-author Willain Dean Howells

 ".....and the last and greatest by Robert Ingersoll, whose eloquence swept the house like a flame. The Howells letter continues:

I doubt if America has ever seen anything quite equal to it; I am well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again. How pale those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how blinding they were in the delivery! Bob Ingersoll's music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature that ever lived. "They fought, that a mother might own her child." The words look like any other print, but, Lord bless me! he borrowed the very accent of the angel of mercy to say them in, and you should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; and you should have heard the hurricane that followed.  from http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/mark-twain-a-biography-volume-ii-part-1-1875-1886/ebook-page-39.asp"

You also get some of Twain's enthusiasm in a letter to his wife, Livy which is copied below:


I’ve just come to my room. Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. I heard four speeches which I can never forget. One by Emory Storrs, one by Gen. Vilas (O, wasn’t it wonderful!) one by Gen. Logan (mighty stirring), one by somebody whose name escapes me, & one by that splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll,—oh, it was just the supremest combination of English words that was ever put together since the world began. My soul, how handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in the midst of those 500 shouting men, & poured the molten silver from his lips! Lord, what an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! All these speeches may look dull in print, but how the lightnings glared around them when they were uttered, & how the crowd roared in response! Ah, It was a great night, a marvelous night, a memorable night. I am so richly repaid for my journey—& how I did long wish with all my whole heart that you were there to be lifted into the very seventh heaven of enthusiasm, as I was. The army songs, the military music, the crashing applause—Lord bless me, it was unspeakable.

http://www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=letters/UCCL01715.xml;query=bob%20ingersoll;searchAll=;sectionType1=;sectionType2=;sectionType3=;sectionType4=;sectionType5=;style=letter;brand=mtp#1

This was the first time that Twain heard Ingersoll and his subsequent affection for Bob is shown in a letter he wrote to the orator's daughter after his death in 1899.

"Except my daughter, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved for his. His was a great and perfect spirit; he was a man—all man from his crown to his footsoles. My reverence for him was deep and genuine: I prize his affection for me and returned it with usury."

from The Robert G. Ingersoll Museum in Dresden, New York
by Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr.

http://www.crookedlakereview.com/articles/34_66/65aug1993/65wisbey.html

Experiencing the Plight of Refugees

By Gary Berg-Cross

When did refugees become terrorists? Or at least some are like "rabid dogs" - see Ben Carson talks of 'rabid dogs': US refugee debate descends into ugliness.

To say the least the idea of letting scores of Middle eastern (think Syrian, no think Muslim refugees) into the US has stirred up nationalist and xenophobic  emotions. It doesn't help that there are politics and religion involved at times too. Consider:

GOP Politicians Rejecting Refugees Sound Like Racist Internet Trolls (RollingStone) or

Data Show Links Between Fear of Terrorist Attacks, Anti-Muslim Bias

Hate crimes against Muslims are up this year, despite a general trend downward for all such crimes. (US News and World Report) or

Syrian Refugees Are Being Punished by Republican Nativist Hysteria

What the Republicans now rejecting Syrian refugees would have said about Jews a century ago. (Haaretz)

Sure there is some fact checking such US News’ 8 Facts About the U.S. Program to Resettle Syrian Refugees (or the Guardian) where we  learn such things as “refugees have to pay back the money for the plane ticket that brings them to the U.S and how “Refugees are subject to Department of Homeland Security background checks before arriving in the U.S.“ Checks to enter take 18-24 months and include the collection of biometric data, security checks, interviews and background investigations, but also “Refugees are processed in conjunction with nine nonprofits, not solely by the government.” (and there is even more at Vox on how few Syrian refugees have been allowed in.)

On the USNews site you can see where refugees since 2011 have bee settled – 25 are in Baltimore, while 115 are in Houtson.

Since a Syrian passport was reportedly found near one of the assailants in the Paris terror attacks there is heightened fears that Islamic State group terrorists could or are exploit(ing) refugee routes and resettlement programs as a way to prepare for later attacks. And on Thursday, the House passed a bill that would impose additional security measures on refugees from Syria and Iraq. But...

You can read critical articles like “The Big Logical Error Made By Everyone Linking Syrian Refugees To The Paris Attack” which asserts “All the perpetrators of the mass murder in Paris who have been identified are European nationals from France and Belgium.”

The Washington Post added that a passport was found near the slain body of one of the terrorists. It was issued to Ahmad Almohammad, a 25-year-old Syrian national, by officials in Greece on October 4. He had arrived a day earlier on a boat carrying migrants from Turkey. Some view this as evidence that one of the terrorists was a refugee. Authorities, however, have determined that the passport is fake. On Tuesday, November 17, Syrian officials arrested another man at a refugee camp who carried a forged passport with the exact same information. It is now unclear if he is involved in the case.

                                      From inquisitr

It seems unlikely that facts alone may not be determinative with this type of group concern meets a panic reaction for a while. Given political campaigns we are more likely to hear stagements from Republican presidential candidates like Chris Christie who has said his state will not take in any refugees – “not even orphans under the age of five”. Or Carlie Fiorina says 'vast majority' of Syrian refugees are able bodied young men. http://ow.ly/UWk38  (Boo says Politifacat)

But perhaps getting a more personal experience with what refugees experience might provide a richer, human experience. Just last year a movie dramatizing the experience of the Lost Boys of Sudan provides one such theatrical experience that on what US resettlement is like and what some refugees go through before, during and after resettlement. This includes the chill imposed by 9/11 and the plight of families trying to reunite during a freeze in immigration. The story has a Christian immigrant view of things, but the experience is more general given who the real life actors are.

Orphaned by the brutal Civil war in Sudan that began in 1983, these young victims traveled as many as a thousand miles on foot in search of safety. Fifteen years later, a humanitarian effort would bring 3600 lost boys and girls to America

The main characters are played by actual refugees—two of whom we learn were child soldiers.  They are the focus with” uninflected, authoritative performances.” compensate for the feel-good simplifications of (the) script.  

If you want to feel a bit of what child refugees got through in war, what it is like to be torn from family and culture you can watch this movie and along the way learn a bit about a connection to Mark Twain via Huck Finn explain the nature of a Good Lie.

God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire, by Terry Lindvall

God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire, by Terry Lindvall

(New York University Press, 2015, 384 pp, $35)

a review by Edd Doerr

The long story of religious satire is told in scholar Terry Lindvall’s new book, off the press in mid-November. Lindvall’s detailed chronicle  runs from ancient Rome through such greats as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Erasmus and Rabelais to Voltaire and on to Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce (my favorite) and then to Monty Python and Stephen Colbert. The book is a useful guide through this vast and often controversial output, though I do not agree with all he writes, as with his praise for C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Belloc and Waugh, whose work defended what Bierce and others satirized. The book would be even better if it had been expanded to include more examples of the best satirists’ work.

Oddly, Lindvall does not mention Bill Maher, George Carlin, Mel Brooks, Larry David or Kahlil Gibran. And although he cites the Monty Python troupe and Colbert, he

overlooks the British series “The Vicar of Dibley” and two hilarious Irish series, “Father Ted” and “Moone Boy,” the latter two being satire too strong for American network television.

Edd Doerr

(Edd Doerr is a columnist in Free Inquiry,  president of Americans for Religious Liberty, and a published poet.)

In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present.  He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. 

A Fit of Pique on mindless utterances & deeds of the Religious Right

by Edd Doerr 

John Rafferty is the long time president of the Secular Humanist Society of New York and editor and writer for its excellent newsletter, PIQUE.

 If you have not already read his 2013 book, A Fit of Pique: Dispatches from the Culture Wars, let me suggest that you order a copy while they last.

 Here’s what I said about the book in a plug on page 2:

 “John Rafferty’s refreshing, wide-ranging writings for Pique are comparable to those of Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce. A Fit of Pique is a delightful garden of gems, a garden richly fertilized by the droppings – er, mindless utterances and deeds of the Religious Right.”

If you like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert or George Carlin, you’ll like Rafferty’s 224-page opus. See  also an online youtube interview.

John's Self Reported Background:

a philosophical humanist all my life, and became an active one when I joined the Secular Humanist Society of New York in 1997. Over the next several years I became a regular contributor to the SHSNY newsletter, PIQUE, and joined the SHSNY Board of Directors in 2003. I became the 

Editor of PIQUE in 2004, and in 2007 was elected President of the Society, positions I still hold.

In 2012 I will assume the Chairmanship of Reasonable New York, a consortium of eleven New York-area freethought organizations (including New York Society for Ethical Culture, Center For Inquiry-NYC, and New York City Skeptics, as well as SHSNY) that work together to advance the cause of reason and science both here and nationally.

I am a professional writer, and have been all my life. The hours are generally good, most people can’t do what I do, and the work involves no heavy lifting.

After college, the army and jobs as a social worker, bartender, junior-high-school teacher and free-lance “true-adventure” writer for pulp men’s magazines, I became a copywriter in the advertising department of Esquire Magazine. I left to be associate creative director of a small advertising agency, then director, and in 1972 started my own firm, an agency specializing in magazine advertising and public relation

Since dissolving that business in 1988 (the desktop revolution, which I celebrate personally, was doing me in professionally), I have made my living as a copywriter and free-lance creative director, while editing newsletters on scientific equipment, archaeology, and (pro bono, of course) secular humanism.

I am a graduate of Queens College, SUNY (B.A., Philosophy, 1959), and was a New York State Regents Graduate Fellow at The New School for Social Research (1959-61) studying under distinguished humanist Horace Kallen (Secularism is the Will of God), but left (marriage, a child, only one income) before earning my M.A. Currently I am in a three-year graduate-level program in Humanist Leadership conducted by the Humanist Institute.

I am an active member of The Players, America’s oldest theatrical club.

I am four times a father (best job I ever had), eight a grandfather, and live happily in midtown Manhattan with my wife, the nonpareil painter and environ-artist Donna Marxer.

You can get a copy of the book,  while they last, for $15 directly from John Rafferty, 141 E. 56^th St., NY, NY 10022-7715.

A collection of a decade's worth of his essays, amusements, and outraged rants in the pages of PIQUE, the newsletter of the Secular Humanist Society of New York.  From "An Atheist's Christmas" to Ronald McDonald & 'Touchdown Jesus'", it's all, in the opinion of philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, "...highly opinionated, incisive, always straight-shooting writing, and you won't regret spending some thoughtful- and enjoyable- hours with it." 

"Simply wonderful," says NY Society for Ethical Culture Leader Anne Klaeysen, "I was hooked from the first great story." 

A Visit with Mark Twain

By Gary Berg-Cross

The end of Summer and the beginning of Fall is a good time for people in this area to visit and roam the Freethought Trail in upstate NY.  This Trail for Freethinkers is a smart collection of places in West-Central New York, roughly the Finger Lakes area, that is historically rich in the development of freethought in the 19^th century. Last year I visited the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum, where you can  spend a little time with that exceptional mind thanks to the efforts of the  Council for Secular Humanism and its Tom Flynn.

This summer I was back in the trail with a visit to Mark Twain’s Elmira locations. Twain (aka real name Samuel Clemens) married Elmira native Olivia Langdon, and spent significant time in the area from the1870s to 1889. When married the couple lived in Buffalo and Hartford, Conn., for 20 years, but Twain and Olivia spent every summer in the peaceful setting of Olivia’s sister’s Elmira home. That home, called Quarry Farm, was located at the top of East Hill, which provides the geographic advantage of a stunning vista, removed from Elmira’s downtown. It now owned by Elmira college and you can see some wonderful things associated with Twain’s life on that campus. You can spend the day with Twain's thoughts by your side.  You can see some of the places he chose to be with the people that were special to him.

It was in Elmira that Mark Twain was married and afterwards penned many of his finest works. His daughters were born Elmira and it is where he entertained some notable guests. You can visit Twain’s study that is featured as a small building on campus. The study was moved from its original location, overlooking the Chemung River on Quarry Farm, to the Elmira College campus in 1952. Twain famously said of it:

“The three months which I spend here are usually my working months. I am free here and can work uninterruptedly.”

And in 1886, Twain penned a more detailed picture to the Chicago Tribune of it as a birthplace for ideas:

“The study may be called the home of Huckleberry Finn and other books of mine, for they were written here.”

This octagonal building was one of Twain’s favorite places  wrote major portions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Prince and the Pauper, A Tramp Abroad, and many short pieces. In 1952 the Mark Twain Study was moved from Quarry Farm to the Elmira College campus. The Study is staffed by trained student guides daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season.

You can see  a twain statue on campus along with memorabilia and associated material at the Mark Twain Exhibit in nearby Cowles Hall which houses photographs, stereoscopic views, and items from the summers Mark Twain and his family spent in Elmira. I loved the Exhibit which dresses up Twain and Olivia's life with association furniture and clothing. We were entertained by one of the student guides who are on hand daily throughout the summer and by appointment in the off-season. They can answer questions about Elmira's role in Mark Twain's life. I could spend a day just on the various quotes of Twain.  Some are displayed on the walls of the Hall or in the books for sale.

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

— Mark Twain

My Dear Sir:

But you are proceeding upon the superstition that Moral Courage and a Hankering to Learn the Truth are ingredients in the human being's makeup. Your premises being wild and foolish, you naturally and properly get wild and foolish results. If you will now reform, and in future proceed upon the sane and unchallengeable hypothesis that those two ingredients are on vacation in our race, and have been from the start, you will be able to account for some things which seem to puzzle you now.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.
Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, Dec. 21, 1901.

"What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not see before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea -- an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plow had gone over before. To be the first -- that is the idea. To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else -- these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Lifetimes of ecstasy crowded into a single moment." - Innocents Abroad

If you are lucky you may run into events sponsored by Center for Mark Twain Studies and you can ride a “Trolley into Twain Country” tour which brings Clemens’ biography to life, and also provides a glimpse into the history of Elmira itself.

The tour includes a stop at Woodlawn Cemetery where Twain and his wife, children and her family are buried.  It’s such a special place evoking deep feeling and many, many people have tried to capture it in video.  You can see one of many here.

A day with Twain is a day with a noble mind.  It makes one think freely and feel deeply. It is sad for the feeling of loss but it may send you back to the pleasant times with your favorite thinkers and their works. I don’t know exactly with Twain would say today, but it would likely be a memorial mix of his ironic wisdom and sadness about our wild and foolish ideas.  The saf fact that folly, rumor and ignorance still reigns despite his warnings and encouragements to the contrary.

More at

 http://newyorkstatesofmind.com/2013/07/18/a-foretaste-of-heaven-elmira-and-mark-twain/

Footage of Twain in the last year of his life

http://io9.com/the-only-known-footage-of-mark-twain-just-got-way-bette-1640814322

Thanks Again Natural World (and friends)

by Gary Berg-Cross

Thanksgiving is here again which is another chance to reflection on the idea of giving thanks.   We do it far and wide as families, but in diverse ways. Some will do a very human thing of reflecting on the list of good things like health and the things that count. There's the sure understanding that a good life is more than material things for sure, but there's some type of gravy on it.  

Others may think of similar enjoyments and emollients from suffering, but will address it and the Thanksgiving celebration as a religious event.  They may bow heads while holding hands and talk about blessings granted by some ghostly, transcendent power. It’s all a matter of the locus of attribution.  I personally prefer a more naturalistic orientation.  Something like the post-mythic view  of an Robert Ingersoll than a religious Procrustean bed of “Thank you Lord for a good harvest.”. Ingersoll’s Thanksgivings grow out of a naturalistic understanding of our world and universe. As he said part of that thanks is the perpetual joy of free thought:

“The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world–not even infinite space.

I was free–free to think, to express my thoughts–free to live my own ideal–free to live for myself and those I loved–free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination’s wings–free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope–free to judge and determine for myself–free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past–free from popes and priests, free from all the “called” and “set apart”–free from sanctified mistakes and “holy” lies–free from the winged monsters of the night–free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought–no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings–no claims for my limbs–no lashes for my back–no fires for my flesh–no following another’s steps–no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers, who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain–for the freedom of labor and thought–to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains–to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs–to those by fire consumed–to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men . And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they have held, and hold it high, that light may conquer darkness still.”

                                A Thanksgiving Sermon by Robert Ingersoll

Ingersoll’s contemporary Mark Twain added a bit of his deconstructive humor to the American Thanksgiving story:

“Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for – annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments.” 
― Mark Twain

I’m planning on exposing my grandsons to that one as a knowledge inoculation.

If you want a more recent version here is a version I adapted from a John Stewart throw-away line.

Perhaps we should consider celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned Western Civ way. On a pretext you invited neighborhood natives to your house for a one day feast. Too bad it might be tainted with germs they are not immune from.  Each year in between you take more and more of their things and occupy their land.  When they protest you claim the right of self-defense, stand your ground with guns and sendin the cavalry for good measure.  Pretty soon the neighborhood is safe for trickle downers and it is only the good people you need to invite over. 

Misinformation, Lies and Ignorance

By Gary Berg-Cross

At a recent meeting I attended the topic of American decline came up somewhat as an obvious assertion as fact with the subsequent search for why this was happening.  After the usual suspects of ineffective government and various stresses such the wealth gap and declining resources it was suggested that an additional reason was “ignorance.” This was elaborated a bit as people not understanding they are being fooled, lied to and manipulated.  For a number of reasons people are just misinformed. We can blame Fox unNews and others parts of conservative media for misinformation on the Affordable Care Act - see What Epic Propaganda Looks Like Obamacare And Permanent Right-Wing Misinformation which includes the sensational rumor mongering ideas of “death panels” and fact-free claims that:

• Obamacare is a "cancer" and "a top-down, iron-fisted, Soviet-style program."
• Obamacare represents the "largest tax increase in the history of the world."
• Obamacare is "sticking it to men."

These are the type of unbalanced, sensational, emotion-generating stories that abuse common sense but appeal to some bias and thus spawns meme waves.  The more boring reality of a neutral story can't compete. 

How do we handle this? One idea is to simply ask, "what is the source or these claims?"  Challenging the source is one way to fight misinformation (MI) in a person, but it may not stem a tide of MIs.  Media and political machines provide an easy way to spread these oversimplified memes which are not sourced back to facts, but are just myths.

 As Mark Twain wrote:

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.

 It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Yes, and Psychology tells us a bit about why people hold on this this Foxian misinformation. You can read a bit about it in Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing by Australian Stephan Lewandowsky and others.  

Novelty, emotional capability and over simplicity making misinformation memetic is part of it.  Having a megaphone to get the meme out is another, but it is also important that we live an nonintellectual climate that

accepts a naive idea of binary balance or what I called binary thinking.  You see in arguments about evolution vs. creationism.  There are 2 sides and so it is balanced to give them equal discussion.  No, this is not the way to balance fact and opinion, although Fox news seems to place the asymmetry in the other direction – more opinion than facts.  People will believe something if it comes from a well-positioned source.  Should I believe in creationism?  Well if it is good enough for my moral leaders (Rabbis, priests, ministers etc.) than it is good enough for me.

 The internet and the social web makes this easier than ever to get a preponderance of opinion and advocacy out there as opposed to literal fact. And of course people believe internet misinformation because it sounds literal like an authoritative source.
 
“A survey of the first 50 Web sites matching the search term “weight loss diets” revealed that only 3 delivered sound dietary advice.” Why People Believe Weird Things and 8 Ways to Change Their Minds by Jeremy Dean

I once had a conversation with a person who thought the facts were against climate change.  His source was a site with some authoritative  definitive name like Climate Facts I don’t remember the actual name, but I looked it up and found it was funded by Exxon. That gave me something to use aside from different climate change facts. With my confused friend I could show why the site he found might be misinforming him – they had hidden motives.

The lesson here is that people are partly ignorant because it is hard to keep up with the flow of information, and not critical thinking or skeptical enough. But there is also responsibility on the part or the 4^th Estate to inform.  As Carl Bernstein noted:

The lowest form of popular culture - lack of information, misinformation, disinformation and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives - has overrun real journalism. 

Psychologist Jeremy Dean proposes a few other ways to unstick folks from misinformation.  These include keeping the rebuttal short and sweet. By sweet one means not attacking the person and being affirmative and not just negative. Don’t overload a misinformed person but dose things out as they may be able to assimilate it and do it in an exchange
An interesting idea which I haven’t tried systematically is to, as Dean calls it “affirm identity.” The idea is to mitigate people’s natural resistance to new, countering, unpleasant facts by getting them to affirm their identity. So if people think of themselves as generous or open or having Christian values they may be better able to accept the value of funding food for hungry people while thinking of those identities. Research suggests this helps people deal with inconsistencies between their beliefs and the new information that is conflicting with it.

In this informative process there are some things to avoid.  After you have noted a topic you are addressing, don’t keep repeating a myth associated with it, such as “death panels”. It just activates emotions, so re-frame the discussion and repeat your main points, which should include facts to give

them a chance to replace unfacts. Think of it as dismantling a structure in stages, but providing a new, sturdy structure to replace it.  I had that experience in that same meeting where we discussed ignorance.  One person supported the idea that our society was declining because it was, yes, too complex, but that this was driven by the government making things too complex in order to be “fair.”  Step by step people in the group offered simple examples of how things like the tax code or laws are complex due to greed and interest on the part of power groups able to influence the construction of tax exemptions etc.  By the end we had a group understanding and the myth of government imposition of fairness was dismantled.

Lewandowsky and colleagues conclude their article with a mixed note of caution and information consumer advice:

“Correcting misinformation is cognitively indistinguishable from misinforming people to replace their preexisting correct beliefs. It follows that it is important for the general public to have a basic understanding of misinformation effects… Widespread awareness of the fact that people may “throw mud” because they know it will “stick”…will contribute to a well-informed populace.”

 Yes, we are all information consumers and know how to move other’s opinions.  It is the task of ethical information agents to pursue the true and educate our fellow citizens.

Images

Myth vs. Fact: http://lifehacker.com/5863557/the-debunking-handbook-explains-the-art-of-shooting-down-misinformation

No hell below us: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion

Replacing misinformation:http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion

Visit the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum

Gary Berg-Cross

Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll, the great, progressive orator of the late 19^th century,  was born August 11, 1833 at 61 Main Street in  Dresden, New York. . That’s 180 years ago this month.  By chance I happened to be in the Dresden area on that August 11th weekend.  Thanks to a timely tip from the Ingersoll Oratory Contest held in June, I knew of the  Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum in Dresden and stopped by to perused the collection of Ingersoll memorabilia and literature.

It gave some time to reflect on the life of this great human being who had so much to say on politics, the arts, science, and the intrusions of religion into these and other aspects of American life.  I was familiar with many of Bob's writings, but less so on the details of his life in the Midwest, his wife and family and some famous people touched by Ingersoll's oratory - Walt Whitman, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and  Mark Twain. On Ingersoll death of heart failure in July of 1899 at the age of 65 Mark Twain wrote the following to Ingersoll’s niece:

“Except for my daughter’s, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved for his.”

If you are ever in the Finger Lakes area of NY, I recommend a stop by for a chance to walk with an exceptional mind. There is also a video to see and it is also online.

I learned a bit of the history and effort to save this house as a museum and the story is told in the museum this way:

The house has been restored on three occasions. It was first restored in 1921 by a blue-ribbon committee whose members included Thomas Edison and Edgar Lee Masters. It operated as a community center until the Great Depression. It was restored in 1954 by atheist activist Joseph Lewis, and operated as a museum until the mid-1960s. It was near collapse when it was purchased in 1986 by the Council for Secular Humanism. After raising and spending more than $250,000, the Council rehabilitated the birthplace and in 1993, opened it as a museum. It is open weekends each summer and fall. 

Thank you. Council for Secular Humanism and director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum Tom Flynn. Tom, BTW, will the speaker at the WASH MDC chapter meeting Dec. 14^th which will be held at the Rockville library (2-4).

While you are in the area you might organize some of your tine along the Freethought Trail of update NY to peruse as you travel.  This is a collection of locations in West-Central New York such as the Elmira home of Mark Twain,  important to the history of freethought. 

The Freethought Trail website is a project of the Council for Secular Humanism, a nonprofit educational organization based in Amherst, New York and we have (again)  the Council’s Tom Flynn , along with Sally Roesch Wagner of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation to thank for it.

Image Credits

From the museum site and

Photo by Gary Berg-Cross