Nieuws brengt geen wijsheid

Nieuws brengt geen wijsheid. Nieuws is een product dat betrekking heeft op verandering, niet wijsheid. Voor wijsheid moet je elders zijn. Wijsheid heeft te maken met het zien van de dingen in hun grootste context, terwijl nieuws is gestructureerd op een manier die die grotere context vernietigd. 

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Julius Caesar, 'The Gallic War', Dover Publications: 2012

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Caesar (...) fearing the fickleness of the Gauls, because they are capricious in forming designs and intent for the most part on change, he considered that no trust should be reposed in them.

It is indeed a regular habit of the Gauls to compel travellers to halt, even against their will, and to ascertain what each of them may have heard or learnt upon every subject; and in the towns the common folk surround traders, compelling them to declare from what districts they come and what they have learnt there.

Such stories and hearsay often induce them to form plans upon vital questions of which they must forthwith repent; for they are the slaves of uncertain rumours, and most men reply to them in fictions made to their taste. (Book IV, 5-8)

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FICK'LENESS, noun
1. A wavering; wavering disposition; inconstancy; instability; unsteadiness in opinion or purpose

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​J. Ellul, 'Propaganda: The formation of Men's attitudes', Vintage: 1973

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In November 1957, a Bordeaux association organized a lecture on the atomic bomb by a well known specialist; the lecture would surely have been of great interest (and not for propaganda purposes). A wide distribution of leaflets had announced it to the student public, but not a single student came. Why? Because this happened at exactly the same time as Sputnik's success, and the public was concerned only with this single piece of news; its sole interest was in Sputnik, and the permanent problem was "forgotten". 

Actually, the public is prodigiously [very much] sensitive to current news. Its attention is focused immediately on any spectacular event that fits in with its myths.

the "current-events man" (...) is highly sensitive to the influence of present-day currents; lacking landmarks, he follows all currents. He is unstable because he runs after what happened today; he relates to the event, and therefore cannot resist any impulse coming from that event. 

All this is also true of those who claim to be "informed" because they read some weekly periodical filled with political revelations."

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C.J. Sommerville, 'How the news makes us dumb: the death of wisdom in an information society', IVP Books: 1999

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The product of the news business is change, not wisdom. You need to go elsewhere for wisdom. Wisdom has to do with seeing things in their largest context, whereas news is structured in a way that destroys the larger context.

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Waarschuwing

Maar er is niets nieuws onder de zon. Want in verleden tijd in Athene besteedde alle Atheniërs en vreemdelingen die daar waren hun tijd in niets anders, maar ofwel tot enig nieuw ding te vertellen, ofwel te horen. Zoals het staat geschreven:

(...) all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing (...)

De King James Bijbel,
Acts 17:21.  ​​

Maar de levenden weten dat zij zullen sterven. En dat is een "permanent problem" waarvan veel levenden tot hun dood worden afgeleid. 

Vandaar deze waarschuwing. ​Want de toorn van God is geopenbaard vanuit de hemel tegen alle ongoddelijkheid en ongerechtigheid van mannen, die de waarheid in ongerechtigheid houden.

​Daarom is het belangrijk om te begrijpen waarom je de vergeving van je zonden nodig hebt, en wat je daarvoor moet doen. Lees daarom Romeinen hoofdstuk 1 vers 18 tot en met hoofdstuk 4 in de King James Bijbel.