INTERVIEW TWO                        DATE: OCTOBER 05, 2012

INTEVIEWED:  BETH BARTLETT                 INTERVIEWER: Jefferson Caicedo

Place:  Colombo Americano North site                 Hour:  14: 22         

 

Today we have Beth Bartlett who is the Academic Director of the Centro Cultural Colombo Americano and she is also an Anthropologist.

Jefferson: Our topic for today is this book “Fahrenheit 451” written by Ray Bradbury who was born in 1920 and one of most famous authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  He also has published some 500 Poems, short stories, novels and plays.

Jefferson: To begin I want to ask you a question:  Having information is mean to have power, to control and to influence others to what extent can we see this? And do you agree with vision?

Beth: Having information is a mean to have power?  Yeah.  I do believe having information is power absolutely.  Aah, information for example provide people with the knowledge….to know what they can do and where they can go in order to change perhaps circumstances of their lives (Yeah), and I do believe that…that people who don’t have access to information either purposely or.. Or just for the circumstance, are people who are really limited in their possibilities in life and they’re kind of dependent, in way, on other people intervening in their life and helping them.  Do you see what I mean? So I think that in Colombia…. Definitely there are also a lot of people who don’t have access to a lot of information and therefore… a kind of power less (Oh.  Yeah, I believe that, uhum.

Jefferson: I would like to…just to read one passage from the book (uhum, sure).  It’s on page ninety-one. 

‘Oh, but we’ve plenty of off-hours.

Off-hours, yes.  But tie to think? If you’re not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can’t think of anything else but the danger, then you’re playing some game or sitting in some room where you can’t argue with the four-wall televisor.  Why? The televisor is “real”.  It is immediate, it has dimension.  It tells you what to think and blasts it in.  It must be right.  It seems so right.  It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn’t time to protest, “What nonsense!”’.  He is telling us that sometimes here is too much information that the people do not know where is real information (Yeah, that is too much or that i- is-is a scude, and I say squede you understand, it’s present one opinion, right).  What’s your point of view about this?

Beth:  And also she’s talking about the fact that… you know… if you are… it seems to me, if you’re really busy you’re doing a lot.  You don’t really have that much time to think about such as things.  Just thinking in information and you’re taking the sort of implicit opinion that might be behind that information.  So for example when we look at news, media.  We look at media right now, unfortunately I would say that it’s not very objective (uhun), right? At all; and I not taking just about Colombian media, I’m talking about American, I’m talking about British, european, Canadian.  Like for example if you look at American news you sees MSBNC, you see MBC, you see CNN and then you see FOX; and the different is huge.  They are editorializing, they presenting their opinions and if you listen to that enough, you start really analyzing, you might just sort of assume those opinions as your own by the way how long have you been here in Colombia?)Twenty-five years (Okay).

Jefferson:  What opinion do you have talking about Colombian media?

Beth: I think it’s just awful, I’m really sorry but; it’s really, really bad.  I mean the way that news is reported here is obvious that is been manipulated by the government, so thus  there is a real like a free press here, but also eh.. the study of journalism here which isn’t terribly….uh,  it needs to be more rigorous in terms of based on facts (yeah, be more… like objective?) Exactly, and uh--yeah, I’m sorry but… it’s not in person, it’s not in person (yeah).

Jefferson:  Actually I was in a like a conference with a man called eh… oh my goodness, I forgot.  He came from USA (Uhun) He was talking—okay he touched many topics but one of the topics I remember, he asked okay what the survey of population say about afro-Colombian people here? And he had a slide that said ten per cent and raised my hand not that’s wrong, you’re wrong; it’s like twenty-seven per cent, and he said but this what the media or the ones that were in charge of doing the survey reported, so it’s kind of…just to mention an example.

Beth: You know that anything that… that has to do with numbers is easily manipulated, manipulable I would say, yeah? (Yeah) but ten per cent ends way too low, right? Okay.

Jefferson: Okay, I would like to… The author here mentions three things that we need in order to get better in terms of what we do, in terms of the influence of media.   The first thing is ah.. He says:  do you know why books such these are so important? Because they have quality, so the first thing we need in formation is Quality.  The second thing is what he calls Leisure.  He says: ‘Oh, but we’ve plenty of off-hours.   Off-hours, yes.  But time to think?

And the third thing he says: ‘Only if the third necessary thing could be given us.  Number one, as I said quality of information.  Number two: leisure to digest it.  And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from interaction of the first two.  And I hardly think a very old man and a fireman turned sour could do much this late in the game.  What’s your perception, what is your point of view regarding these three things that the author mentions here? Ray Bradbury.

Beth: Je, je, je, but this is referring to what? Taking in information, transforming, and interaction (yeah).  Well I think it goes back to the previous point we were talking about.  Aah…if you don’t time to think about the information that you’re receiving, you might tend to just assume other’s people opinions as your owns; yeah? So in that way it becomes kind of manipulated by however is feeding that information.  So definitely yeah… Not just… I- I think that perhaps the idea that we leisure in order to think about things.  Leisure is out of premium these days; I think just more it’s a… to possess critical thinking skills (that’s it, more than that point, rather than just time.  It’s the ability to question things in an intelligent way; process things in an intelligent way, to be able to accept, to reject based piece of information (and I would say) more than leisure.  I think it involves a lot more than just leisure (I see.  And I would mention be responsible with what you do with information) exactly, exactly.   Like a good example of lack of responsibility will be for example these idiots that’ve been protesting about MIO, you know the last couple of weeks and they’ve been very irresponsible; yeah they’ve got certain information, but what’s the action that they’ve taken? The action that they’ve taken have been damaging to the citizens and to the government and to the finances of the city (yeah, you are right) uhum, so you ARE right; it leads the responsible action that’s taken.

Jefferson:  Okay, okay Beth I think that this all for today, I thank you (this’s a pleasure) a lot giving me this opportunity and I hope to have you soon,  again (okay my darling, thank you) okay, thank you.