TITLE: “Why did we become so ignorant”

HEADLINE: Google, Wikipedia and the net: an excess of information that threatens the culture

1^st PARAGRAPH:

Is common thought that Internet, Google, Wikipedia and the rest destroy or at least threaten culture,

despite the incredible amount of information that provide or perhaps because of this flood of information. It is a complex issue that must be addressed without catastrophic and nostalgic convictions of the wickedness of the times and without passive and joyful acquiescence to any bad habit general. Is not it strange that culture can be weakened by an excess of information that prevents you to select and reflect and causes difficulties for the time of the authentic culture, which is not accumulation of knowledge but rather the ability to criticism and self-criticism, passion and distance. Culture, said Lin Yutang, is to love and hate with foundation. It is strange that is the information to be impoverished fearfully up to ridicule, even the mere information without reflection.

FUNCTION: The first paragraph introduces the problem ( Internet, Google, Wikipedia and the rest destroy or at least threaten culture,despite the incredible amount of information that provide or perhaps because of this flood of information).

2^nd PARAGRAPH:

No one doubts that today we have information tools incredibly fast, such as those offered by search engines. These tools are a great help in everything, they immediately provide information and data that we might obtain only after long, arduous and uncertain work. Like everyone else, and with the help of the others, it also happens to me to use frequently and usefully search engines for the things I write about. That information, is not yet culture, but it is the premise. But strangely today is the information to regress fearfully, as if, instead of having tools so functional, we would live in a world without communication, books, newspapers, radio, television and internet.

FUNCTION: The second paragraph explains the thesis ( we are becoming more ignorant despite the wealth of information).

3^rd PARAGRAPH:

Bruno Arpaia and Pietro Greco quote impressive and comical examples of incredible ignorance in their book. A deputy of the Democratic Party of the last Parliament, questioned on television about what is a synagogue, answers:«It is the place where Muslim women go to pray to their God». Fifty, maybe a hundred years ago, even an illiterate person would have known almost, albeit roughly, that the synagogue has something to do with the Jews. Another politician, when she was asked to say who is Netanyahu, responds «the president of Iran». In this case the mechanism clear: she would have opened once a newspaper, she would have read a title in capital letters like «Netanyahu complains with Iran» or something similar, and so her mind has associated the two terms, such as straw, hay, right, left, in the exercises of conscript soldiers a century ago.

FUNCTION: The paragraph's function is to support the thesis, mainly through an example of a comparison with the past.

4^th PARAGRAPH:

Arpaia and Greco sympathize with the left-centre, but to be fair they don't save the ignorance wherever they find it; of course, there are examples in their book so resounding that concern members of the right- centre. Recently, Umberto Eco, on the '' Espresso ', recalled how in the quizzes , broadcasted on primetime TV, some people, listed with name and surname, proved to believe that Mussolini was still alive during the end of the eighties or nineties. The worst trouble is that these people don't have fled into the desert to hide the shame of being caught in such inconceivable ignorance, however they may have been flattered to have appeared on TV, even if they have been mocked. However they can console themselves, because they are in good company in the whole world.

FUNCTION: The paragraph's function is to support the thesis. It bears some examples of ignorance, like the one narrated by Umberto Eco.

5^th PARAGRAPH:

Is often the ruling class or what is believed this or destined to become one, crowding the pews reserved for pupils with donkey's ears. A young woman from a Jewish family, whose great-grandparents died in a concentration camp, didn't know who was Hitler. When I was teaching at Bard College, a great American college where Hannah Arendt taught and is buried, on 39 graduated persons, only one knew who was Tito and nine didn't know who Stalin was. Is difficult to understand how this could happen, due to the fact that today is even easier and faster to know who Stalin was.

FUNCTION: The paragraph bears an hypothesis: according to the journalist, "is often the ruling class crowding the pews reserved for pupils with donkey's ears". To support his hypothesis he bears some examples: a Jewish girl that didn't who was Hitler and students of an important college that didn't know who were Tito and Stalin.

6^th PARAGRAPH:

Perhaps today there is a great disparity between the supply and the demand, especially in the cultural field. Very few go to the library to ask for a book to pursue their real interest, few go to the library with requests personally motivated. Usually you go to ask what is powerfully offered, and the search engines assume an initiative of the consumer, the consumer will pose the question, even if they usually respond in turn by downloading an offer inflated and therefore sometimes also misleading. However, neither that really explains why people know less and less in the era of knowing.

FUNCTION: The final paragraph's function is to bear another hypothesis: the lack of knowledge today is due to "a great disparity between the supply and the demand, especially in the cultural field". However, the journalist demolishes this hypothesis saying:" , neither that really explains why people know less and less in the era of knowing."