Food Ignorance

I recently read a startling fact. Seven percent of adult Americans think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Yes, I said adult Americans. That amounts to 16.4 million people who don’t know that chocolate milk is made of milk, cocoa, and sugar.

A study in the ‘90s found that 1 in 5 adults don’t know that hamburgers are made from ground beef.

Interviews with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at an urban California school revealed that more than half of them didn’t know pickles were cucumbers, or that onions and lettuce were plants. Four in 10 didn’t know that hamburgers came from cows. And 3 in 10 didn’t know that cheese is made from milk.

Ask them where food comes from and their answer is “the store.” But, where did the store get the food? For too many Americans, that question is one of life’s great mysteries.

Commotion in D.C.

Watching the Russia election-meddling investigation on Capitol Hill reminds me of a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

… it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

There will be subpoenas, there will be witnesses, there will be testimony – then, there will be more subpoenas, more witnesses, more testimony. And so on.

James Comey says about Trump: “Lies, plain and simple.”

Donald Trump says about Comey: “… so many false statements and lies…”

Oy.

Trump is not afraid to lie, even when the lie is obvious to everyone. In a meeting with Congressional leadership, Trump began the conversation this way: “I won the popular vote, you know.” In reality – I mean, everyone else’s reality, not Trump’s reality – Clinton received 2.8 million more votes than Trump. But Trump lives in a different reality.

I’m sure Trump’s supporters are aware that he lies about facts, but I doubt that they care. Trump’s supporters are more concerned about this question: “What’s in it for me?” If they have better jobs and more income, they’ll be happy campers. Maybe that’s good. Maybe all of us should ask that question.

“What’s in it for me?”

Cognitive Ease

I recently watched an interesting video on Derek Muller’s Veritasium YouTube channel. The video is called The Illusion of Truth. In the video, Muller explains a psychological phenomenon called cognitive ease. When you hear or read something and it seems familiar and right and true, you are experiencing cognitive ease. (This is the opposite of cognitive strain, in which we have trouble understanding or believing something, even though it may well be true.) Sometimes the reason we experience cognitive ease is because we are hearing or reading something that we already know is true or because it simply makes sense.

But beware: we humans can be manipulated into feeling cognitive ease – manipulated into feeling that something is true when it is not. One of the simplest ways to create cognitive ease is through frequent repetition of a phrase. With each repetition, we become a bit more comfortable with the idea, and the idea becomes a bit easier to believe. Eventually, we accept the statement as fact. Advertisers and sales people (and politicians) have known about this phenomenon for a long time.

In his video, Muller mentions neither politics nor politicians. The video is just a discussion of cognitive ease: what it is, how it works. However, as I watched the video, I couldn’t help thinking about a certain politician and the derogatory nicknames he consistently applies to his opponents.

Hillary Clinton - “Crooked Hillary.” Bernie Sanders - “Crazy Bernie.” Ted Cruz - “Lyin’ Ted.” Marco Rubio - “Little Marco.” Jeb Bush – “Low Energy Jeb.” And more recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren - “Goofy Elizabeth Warren” and “Pocahontas.”

This politician also attacks our judiciary, labeling judges “so-called judges” and deriding their rulings as “erroneous” and “ridiculous.” He refers to news stories he doesn’t like as “fake news.” Clearly, he feels he should be able to do whatever he wants regardless of the courts or the Constitution.

While this politician is hardly alone in the manipulation game, he is the most visible, the most brazen, and perhaps the most dangerous of the many who will gain by convincing us to believe in their worldview. If we do that, we may find ourselves supporting what they want to the detriment of what we the people need.

Let’s remember: cognitive ease through frequent repetition is an effective tool used by advertisers, sales people, and less-than-scrupulous politicians.