American democracy – and basic geography

The dangers of uninformed electorate in the information age

LAST AUGUST, HURRICANE Katrina came ashore near the city of New Orleans, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing more than a thousand people in the course of the storm and its aftermath.

In the weeks that followed, reporters and news media from all over the globe made their way to the Gulf Coast to cover the story of thousands of Americans being reduced to near-refugee status in a matter of days.

With the months of media coverage and word of mouth that followed the tragedy, one might reasonably expect the American public to be somewhat well informed about the situation.

Yet according to a new poll conducted by National Geographic, a full one-third of Americans cannot locate Louisiana on a map — and nearly half can’t find neighboring Mississippi.

While the ongoing War in Iraq has been in the news for around three years or more now, 60 percent of Americans polled couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

Three-fourths couldn’t locate Israel, despite the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been in the news since, well, the late 1940s.

Whenever I see poll numbers like these, I’m reminded of Winston Churchill’s famous quip, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Under America’s republican system of government, those among us who cannot find Iraq or Israel on a map have the ability to at least indirectly affect American policy there.

The irony is that in the modern age of electronic media, we believe ourselves to be more informed than the denizens of previous eras.

Yet despite the technology that makes unprecedented levels of communication instantly available, we are largely no better informed than in the past.

This is not due to a lack of information, instead it is due to a low appetite for information.

It’s not difficult to find out where Iraq is located — but one has to desire to find out. Evidently, at least some of those who feel compelled to offer their opinions on the ongoing struggle in Iraq have no idea where Americans are fighting and dying.

Perhaps we should cast some blame on America’s schools as well. An investment in good old-fashioned maps rather than shiny new technology in our public schools might be advisable.

The danger posed by an uninformed electorate is not difficult to see.

The politicians from both parties who make blatant appeals to pure populism — and I include some elements of the Bush administration and Democrats alike in that classification – run the risk of being led by the people rather than leading them.

I’m obviously not arguing that democracy is itself a bad idea — but a woefully under informed electorate presents serious problems for any system that relies on public opinion to function.

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