There was an unusual back and forth this past week on BUSLIB, the excellent business librarian’s listserv that I’ve belonged to for many years, that I think may speak to some of the way many people are looking at information these days.

A librarian posted a column from the MSNBC Web site that was an analysis of what the writer thought was a decline in U.S. global competitiveness. (How Long Will America Lead the World, by Fareed Zakaria) One BUSLIB member posted that he didn’t want to see such “propaganda” on the list; and another called posting the article “outrageous”.

Propaganda? Outrageous? These are the adjectives applied to a mainstream piece written by a mainstream writer on such a mainstream topic as the economic competitiveness of the U.S? Wow…

This had me puzzled until I realized that the people that made those angry comments are probably the same kind of people that now claim that “all” polls and surveys are biased or fixed. Anyone in the research or information field knows that there are lots of poorly designed surveys, and indeed some would certainly be suspect depending on who sponsored the survey—but to believe that all must be purposely rigged? That’s as rash an approach as those who trust them unquestioningly.

It seems that that sentiment as well as those who made the comments on the BUSLIB list are reflecting this polarized world where some are so committed to their political point of view that they believe that whenever an article, study, report, or even a bit of data in any way challenges it, that the information must be suspect.

Sure, in the really big picture, epistemologically or taking a postmodern approach, everything can be doubted. But once we all decide that whenever we read something that seems to give some credence to “the other side” that de facto it’s false, rigged, or unfair, we are clearly in a world where, to paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, everyone does feel they are entitled not just to their own opinions, but to their own facts.