The essay is written by Alice O'Connor and she talks about these think tanks feeding us "bad" knowledge. The research that the "idea mills" were churning out are pretty much skewed and are designed to support whatever company is sponsoring them. "They are also highly misleading and in some cases demonstrably false" (100). She then gives examples that contribute to bad knowledge and categorizes them as: 1) hidden premises, 2) misleading "indicators", 3) methodological creep, 4) pretentious diction, and 5) historical vacuums. She also forwards and adds to Orwell's rules that will ultimately promote political knowledge.
At first, I didn't like the essay. I was trying to read it and I didn't understand it. Also maybe because there was a lot of distractions in this damn house. Irrelevant.
After reading the essay, I thought to myself, "Wowzaaa! I never thought of it like that!" I mean, I had an idea that the materials that we get to peruse and the information that we take in are manipulated one way or another, but O'Connor was able to write it in a 12 page essay!
In her essay, it seemed like she was against the right-wing way of thinking. She just seemed to bash a lot of the traditional things that the conservative people are trying to preserve, even though they're totally outdated.
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Yes, even though I agree with the author and her findings, it is distracting that she only cites "think tanks" on the right. It makes her point (which is unbiased) seem biased because her bias against conservatives shows through in her examples.
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