Who are "They?"

     Skepticism v. Gullibility

     Specific v. General

     Right v. Wrong

    I am amazed at the push and pull of these forces today, particularly the first pair.  During my public discourse class this week, we've been watching a documentary of sorts entitled Missrepresentation (rather cleverly, I might add), which is about the misrepresentation (can you believe it?) of women in media and in the world.  It dealt with issues such as oversexualization, cultural ideals, under-prominence of women in important positions, and lower pay rates for them, some of their points which I agreed with and some of them not so much.  What I found more interesting than the points made, however, was my own reaction to them.

    Throughout the past, lets say second half, of my lifetime, I've become more skeptical of the information presented to me, and a little less likely to take it at face value.  I don't like to be spoon fed anymore.  Herein lies my dilemma.  While watching Missrepresentation, I found myself questioning the source of every piece of information thrown my way.  This seems to be a good thing, right?  No one will  pull the wool over my eyes, for sure.  But wait, how much of the media now days presents their sources for absolutely everything they contain?  Of the media that does, how much of it is the consumer going to investigate him or herself?  I, for one, do not spend my days poring over the works cited of the website I exhausted in the days before, do not enjoy reading every single article in the bibliography of my friend's English paper (let alone my own sometimes).  What's worse, those articles are going to have their own works cited, as will all of the articles in those works cited until it gets back to the scientific study that originally tested it or the survey that initially collected the responses, in an exhausting case of what I like to call "the facing mirrors effect."  Just as a pair of mirrors facing each other will reflect an endless, repetitive tunnel of whatever stands between them, so each article in each works cited has its own works cited, which contains articles with their own works cited, and so on and so forth, with the only exception being that at least the works cited chain eventually runs out if links and ends.  Now that I've beaten the concept to death, let me ask my question:  How are we supposed to know what to believe and what to dismiss, and if there is no concrete answer to this question, on what are we supposed to base the bulk of our thoughts, opinions, decisions, and actions?

    One could argue that, in order to be credible, someone should simply trace their information to the source, and that will solidify its credibility.  I say, still, how are we supposed to fully trust those sources as well? Am I being paranoid and radical?  Possibly.  All I know is my own mind, but I've heard of enough scandals and enough faulty studies to know that nothing I hear is 100% ensured to be true, and I think that is a sad thing.  Surely, it is unavoidable, but still a bit of a tragedy.  Trust, in today's world, is easy to take advantage of, and always has been, really.  I'm always amazed when I encounter a person who is so fired up for a cause, because I wonder if they've experienced this phenomenon first hand, or if they've gotten their information from the internet, newspapers, and other people.  I would be terrified to make my voice heard and declare anyone else incorrect unless I were completely positive I had the truth.  Does this make me a coward?  I don't know.  It definitely makes me cautious, maybe excessively so.

    My public discourse professor presented us with a chart today...this one:

Income and Education

Criteria		Overall	High school graduate	Associates degree	Bachelor's degree	Master's degree	Professional degree	Doctoral degree
Median individual income	Male, age 25+	$33,517	$28,763	$39,015	$50,916	$61,698	$88,530	$73,853
	Female, age 25+	$19,679	$15,962	$24,808	$31,309	$41,334	$48,536	$53,003
	Both sexes, age 25+	$32,140	$26,505	$35,009	$43,143	$52,390	$82,473	$70,853
Median household income		$45,016	$36,835	$51,970	$68,728	$78,541	$100,000	$96,830

SOURCE: US Census Bureau, 2003

He then pointed out that, in order for me to make more than a male with a High School degree, I would need to get a Bachelor's.  Now, this is not something I'm worried about, because I'm on my way to getting a Bachelor's right now, but it definitely shocked me into actually examining the chart.  I hadn't yet accepted this chart as the truth, but if it is the truth, I sure wanted to be in on it, at this point.  The next thing he pointed out is that, in order to make more than a male with a Bachelor's, I would need a Doctoral.  WHAT?  I checked where the chart came from..."the US Census Bureau" pasted along the bottom.  Crap.  Seems like a pretty good source.  Seems like one.  If this is for real, I couldn't believe it.  In such a case, I had no idea a wage gap like that existed still.  I'm still hoping that this chart is unreliable, not because I care to make tens of thousands more than any of the males in my life (though I don't deny the importance of money to my future...I don't know of anyone who can), but because such a split as this would be incredibly unfair, and I like to think we've passed that level by now.  I don't even call myself a feminist, or at least certainly not a dedicated or radical one, but I want the same chances as anyone else.  I do acknowledge that this chart is from 2003, but at any rate, even by then I would have hoped we were farther along.  My professor stated that the values on the chart haven't changed much in the past ten years, which I don't know is true either, but if this 2003 chart is legitimate, I'm inclined to believe him, even if I'm not completely sure if I should. He seems like a pretty smart guy and has a Doctorate (which means, by the way, that, according to the data, I wouldn't be able to make more than him regardless of my level of education).  

    Such is my frustration with life: never knowing what to believe.  I've discovered a song by an artist called Jem, whom I'm not necessarily a fan of due to my general love of male vocals over female (I can't tell if that is ironic in this context or not), but I definitely like this song, which is titled "They."  It refers to the tendency of some people to not know where their information comes from, and to just say "they told me this was true" instead of clarifying, and it includes some lyrics that just kinda made me shiver when I heard them.  Lines like "who made up all the rules?  We follow them like fools, believe them to be true, don't care to think them through," "and it's ironic too cause what we tend to do is act on what they say, and then it is that way," and "who are they and where are they, how can they possibly know all this?" really hit home when it comes to the faint paranoia I feel about information presented to me.  Enjoy.