Where There’s A Microphone, Can An “Expert” Be Far Behind?
Have you noticed the surge in the use of the word “curation”? The actual definition is “selecting, organizing, and caring for items in an exhibit or collection.” It has also been applied to careful attention to content—written, heard, and/or viewed. But the definition includes “using professional or expert knowledge.”
The way the word is tossed around today pretty much means anyone can “curate,” regardless of expertise and knowledge. We’re not talking about a 16th Century Titian expert at the Guggenheim. So “curation” often slides over into censorship under the guise of a respectable name.
I have an odd belief that adults should be able to determine what they choose to listen to or read or watch, so long as no harm is done to others. The courts have maintained that you can’t shout “Fire!” in an occupied movie theater because harm can clearly come to others. But reading something that’s a minority view isn’t nearly at that level of potential danger.
After all, Galileo was right, wasn’t he?
I’m not a Joe Rogan fan at all, but he has a right to be heard if a platform supports him. I’m not a Whoopi Goldberg fan, but she has a right to be heard even though her historically uninformed comments on the Holocaust are repugnant.
In my view, the trouble with both of them and thousands more is that they simply have public access and use it, not as experts or true “curators,” but simply because there’s a microphone in front of them. As adults, we have to decide what’s right and wrong, accurate and inaccurate, amongst all this noise.
Simply possessing the ability to broadcast doesn’t necessarily mean you have something learned and important to say. And we’re seeing that more and more every day.
