The virtues of an informed citizen

There is a war on. It seems to have it all: refugees, satellite photos, expert analyses, presidential addresses and astounding pictures of destruction. Amid claims that this war seems like a movie, I've tried to see how these events translate into my life, but the only signs I find are subtle feel-good vibes and a spattering of patriotism. Shouldn't things have more pizzazz?

War is not an event to take lightly, but I can't help feeling a little bored. As the war and anthrax scare eat up headlines and airtime, it becomes clear how little I know of these places or their people. Each photograph of a turbaned gun-toter in some rugged plateau tells me nothing of his fears and fantasies. I try to do as the art critics tell me and look deep into his eyes (lost soul? heartbroken? servant of God?), but it's hard to pass judgment from a few well-arranged pixels.

As passive consumers of news, it seems the only thing we can do is make judgments. This strikes me as worse than not knowing anything about the news at all. The scenes play out from exotic locales of Cairo and Gaza to more modern and familiar settings like Hamburg and Prague. These are portrayed as breeding grounds for terrorists, and Afghanistan as their training camp. The actors are Arabs, wealthy and poor alike, egged on by distaste for freedom. But these bland 1-D portrayals offer little insight into what it is about Cairo that makes it such a fundamentalist hotspot, or why freedom is so unpalatable for people. These are complicated questions, but they deserve serious answers.

We are bombarded with simplified stories that leave one with nothing new. The news teems with value-laden phrases like "just war," "national duty" and "radical terrorists," phrases I have a hard time making sense of. In the past six weeks, all these ideas have been questioned. Can this be a just war if the enemy has been suffering for so long? Are radical terrorists Allah-crazed? Do I have any responsibility to an expanse of land enclosed by artificial lines? Accepting this vocabulary obscures important issues around the war and creates sentiments that may not be consistent with the facts.

The onslaught of news doesn't address these complications. War is not a simple matter of good vs. evil, but the media do little to clear the waters. After hours of reviewing what the networks and publishing houses say, I don't feel less ignorant than before. The feeling isn't restricted to news about the war. For years I have held that being an "informed citizen" is an important goal for every one. I used to ask myself how people could go about their lives while groundbreaking stuff was happening on the other side of the globe. I am beginning to think that being an "informed citizen" may not be as fulfilling or pressing as I once thought.

In thinking about issues and places that I have intimate knowledge of, I realize that it takes more than a 30-minute daily fix of general information. If one were to apply more rigorous standards of what an "informed" citizen might be, one would find a great deal of time and effort monopolized in the pursuit.

The pretension of knowing what is "going on" in the world ignores the question of whether the world cares who knows what. Surely, Seattleites don't care for Egypt's opinion on light rail or homeless people. The emphasis on world events is at the expense of our own communities. People and places that directly affect our lives are sacrificed in the name of global awareness. If attention were directed at our communities, we might pay more attention to who is building what, where our food comes from, what kind of landscapes we live among and who makes the big decisions. Maybe we would become empowered