<< Misinformation

There’s a passage in El Quijote (First part, chapter XXXII) which narrates a funny encounter between the owner of a hostel where the characters are staying the night and a priest traveling with the knight of the sad figure*.

Summarized, the owner of the hostel firmly believes that every word printed in the tales of knighthood are real. Which would mean strange stories of fights with magical snakes, wizards and metamorphism would also be true. His main argument being the royal seal authorizing the edition of these texts**

What stroke the most interesting was not however this footnote comment on the edition** trying to make sense of this event (translated below):

In cultures with insufficient literacy, written mediums carry a picture of veracity: the mere fact of written scripture, seemed to guarantee the reality of a new or tale....***

It wouldn’t be very hard to clip this explanation into today's social media environment and we would immediately find a rather plausible explanation. We’re illiterate. 

Much more precisely: we’re digitally illiterate. We seem to believe that just because something goes around on the net it must be real because “why would it be in the source of all knowledge if it wasn’t”.

Obviously we’re talking of two different scales here: unemployed or deceitful scribes in the 1400's had a much more reduced reach and lacked deepfaking and photoshop. But the core argument stands: digital literacy, which we can define as the capacity and means to differentiate between digital fabrications and reality, is a need in our age. 

This further lends credibility to Paulo Frerie’s thoughts about the impossibility of liberating anyone if not by education and a result of their own struggle. We need no further proof than having a conversation with that one friend or family member that’s hard to convince.

It seems as a society we still have a long way to go. Much to do in the way of tolerance and real acceptance of plurality (real plurality not PC culture); but also in critical thinking, to know there’s no such thing as wandering knights.

Notes:

1. The knight of the sad figure is another way to refer to El Quijote 

2. At the time, a royal seal was required to authorize publication of literary works.

3. The edition I owe is the commemorative 400 years edition (2004,20015). 

The text is a translation of my own from the original footnote (in Spanish): En las culturas con una alfabetización insuficiente, la escritura conlleva un plus de veracidad: el mero hecho de constar por escrito parecía garantizar la realidad de una noticia o de un relato.