The Hitchhiker, A Peace Conference and the Frequent E-mailer

by Joan L. Cannon SI Hayakawa hitchiking

The Internet has accomplished so many important things for everyone who is within reach of its influence — many more than it reaches directly — it's hard to keep up. At the top of the list is probably its presence to aid any investigation whether from pure curiosity to an effort to thwart censorship. It also, because of its incredible efficiency at dissemination is equally a frightening offender.

Once it used to be said that one shouldn't believe everything one reads in the papers. Now the caution needs to be extended to what one reads on the Internet. One difficulty is that there's no editor or arbiter of policy for the Net when it comes to the dissemination of lies, calumny, foolishness, and the grinding of numberless axes.

S.I. Hayakawa waving from the back of a train during his US Senate campaign Los Angeles Times photographic archive, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA

A case in point would be an acquaintance who is a heartfelt conservative. She sends me regular warnings about the sorry state of our country with Obama as president, about American heedlessness to the power of Islam to override US traditions, religions, military, domestic affairs, and in short, to take over this country because of the stubborn, stupid, blindness of our citizens.

This woman is college educated, a retired businesswoman, twice widowed, and still filled with enthusiasm and energy. I doubt she has ever studied any of the 'liberal arts'other than what she caught by chance during her education. She may know historical facts, but little history.

She e-mails me several times a week. Sometimes she sends wonderful series of photos of things like the idiotic comical positions and places in which dogs or cats have been found sleeping, or gorgeous photomontages of fabulous scenery (usually accompanied by easy-listening music) at seasons or times of day that make them appear mythical, or sometimes series of homely gentle jokes.

Those e-mails are the smaller part of what occupies her Internet communications. Most of them are edited, selected pieces of public information couched so as to elicit immediate fury or panic on the part of the reader. She is honestly afraid of every Muslim who sets foot in this country, or who is already here. She uses her out-of-context evidence with the convictions of a missionary.

She advances statistical evidence that if we don't stop immigration, and if the rest of the western world doesn't wake up, Islam will have engulfed all other religions and we will all be subjected to Sharia Law.

I used occasionally to point out via FactCheck.org or Snopes the inaccuracy or falsity of some of her assertions, but I don't even bother to check them any more. I know perfectly well that I can't influence that mindset. That's what’s frightening.

In high school, one of the essays we read — perhaps in the ninth grade — was by Professor and Senator S. I. Hayakawa (see Google for more information about him). The essay was about the dangers of stereotyping. Its premise could be summed up in the phrase, "Cow A is not cow B."

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The Hitchhiker, A Peace Conference and the Frequent E-mailer

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