I don't want to read the daily paper, but I have to do it. Relevance requires interacting with the false and the absurd. This is the primary reason I write very little about politics. Why should I sit down and write something which I know will be relevant today and stupid tomorrow? Especially when no one is going to read it today but someone who might have thought I was smart could read it in the future. No.
If one wants to be relevant, one has to know the current conversation. If one ignored every foolish and evil idea today, one would have more time and energy to be better educationed not only about the absurdities of the moment, but about everything. And there is the problem with keeping up: Relevance is directly contrary to knowledge. So should you read the news?
Like all good answers, this one is "yes and no". Relevance is important. Note the existentialist reference at the top of the page. Existentialism is about knowing that your experience is of your time and place, and one of the ethical outcomes of that is the idea that you can commit to time and place. This is the philosophy version of "be here now." It is your ethical duty to respond to evil, and that requires being educated in its workings which are closest to you. This is explained in the news.
Knowledge is also important, and goodness is important, and to make room for these relevance has to be contained. One doesn't need to be quite so pleased to be the first to know something; it is better to know the right thing. And of course it is best to be the right thing. One can step away from the conversation for a week or so and come back when the main points have crystallized and a few thinkers who are on top of that subject have already provided the context, that is, placed the relevant into a larger image of the world.
I mentioned in my previous post some good places to purchase context, such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. As to linking the context to what is true, that's the readers' job.
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(Image: The Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral. A historic structure which has been the subject of some recent foolishness.)
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