Jeffrey Kluger, starts off his article "I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me with Facts" by stating that people are known to be gullible. As an example Kluger mentions a recent dispute in downtown Manhattan. Kluger continues by making a remark about two assistant professors of communication from Ohio State University - R. Kelly Garrett and Erik Nisbet, who performed a study to show what the real influence of such lies is and what it would take for people not to believe in them. They recruited 750 people familiar with at least one rumor about the Islamic cultural center to determine whether if given true facts about the topic the study group would change their beliefs. Garrett's and Nisbet's study showed that even though with people’s beliefs being easily manipulated only less than a third of people changed their mind. Garrett states that when our beliefs are in conflict with the truth people “respond by sticking to their biases even more strongly” and that “none of us likes being told we’re wrong”. Kluger finishes his article by saying that no matter the outcome of the studies, it is up to us to decide what we believe in, to separate given information into what we think are facts and what we consider fiction.
I agree with the author Jeffrey Kluger when he states: “Even when people do take time to learn the facts, the effort often does no good”, because people are narrow minded, they do not like to be told that they are wrong and they tend to be oblivious to what is going on around them.
Once we learn something no matter if it is a rumor or an actual fact we decide to stick to it. We tend to be very stubborn if it is argued whether what we believe in is true or not. No matter how many different ways someone tries to change our mind we still do not. Recently in my ENG 099 class with Dr. X we discussed “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato. It is a story about people being imprisoned their whole life in a Cave. They have their necks and legs chained so that they cannot move and all they see is what is before them. Before them are shadows of people walking behind them on a raised pathway. Shadows are all the prisoners believe, it is their only reality. One of the prisoners is set free, after struggling with sharp pains from moving his neck and from the sun touching his eyes for the first time he finally leaves the Cave. After this prisoner explores life outside the Cave he decides to go back to the Cave and tell the other prisoners what he had learned. The other prisoners however were not as open minded, they did not want to learn new things. So instead they started mocking him for not being able to name the shadows anymore since his eyes were no longer adjusted to the dark. To them it was unimaginable that there was life outside the Cave and that it could have been so different from their reality, represented by the shadows.
Obviously nobody likes to be told they are wrong. Kluger mentions in his article that it has a lot to do with our ego. We put a lot of pride in whatever it is that we believe in, so how can we be wrong? A couple of weeks ago I witnessed two of my friends argue about a broken car alarm. The owner of the car was positive that the alarm was constantly going off because it was simply broken and had to be replaced, and my other friend was sure that it had something to do with the alarm sensor in the trunk of the car. I am not a mechanic and car alarms are the least of my worries I would just bring the car to one of the local shops to get it fixed. My friends however were so engaged in their argument that it lasted for at least an hour and a half. Neither one of them admitted that they were wrong nor did they come to any understanding in the middle. They haven’t spoken until today.
People tend not to be aware of what is going on around them. They live in their own little worlds and do not pay attention to any of its surroundings. This reminds me of my boss who is really something else. I was the one who always supplied the office with paper towels and toilet paper so we usually never lacked it. One day however we ran out of paper towels and it just so happened that my desk was stacked with paperwork for me to go over and I could not go to the store. My boss after coming out of the bathroom had the most surprised face I have ever seen. It seemed to him impossible for us to be out of paper towels. He asked me – “Agata, what now?”. I responded saying that someone has to go to the store since I was too busy. He continued looking at me like I was some kind of a freak. I came to the conclusion that all this time not once had he seen me walking into the office with dozens of paper towels or toilet paper rolls. As long as we did have bathroom supplies it did not batter to him how we actually got them. People learn something and it does not matter to them whether it is right or wrong, they just decide to stick with it, so they would not be bothered with (what to them is) more useless information.
In conclusion, people may be easily manipulated as it showed in Nisbets and Garretts study, but it is very difficult to actually change ones belief, even if the reason behind that is plain spite, laziness in learning the facts or ignorance.
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