We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.
Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can't control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can control whether we hold them accountable for those lies or whether, in either a state of exhaustion or to protect our own political objectives, we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.
'Who Are We As A Country? Time To Decide' [USA Today, 19 December 2017]
Use the link below to read a 2021 article about former Acting US Attorney General SALLY YATES and her surprising support for ousted Republican Congresswoman LIZ CHENEY:
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The mass media age is over, and thus so is the age of "common facts".
ReplyDeleteWe now live in an epistemological crazy house where there's no agreement about facts.
My most dead-hearted and pessimistic take is that while I might agree with you about "objective truth", we're not gonna convince enough undecideds unless we enlist "raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications" in service of the values we explicitly put forward.
@ Colin
ReplyDelete"An epistemological crazy house" is one of the best descriptions I've read of the fractured post-media age we now live in. The idea of "truth" has become entirely subjective, meaning that what might be "true" for one individual or group is all too often the opposite of "true" for another individual or group. This makes me extremely pessimistic because without a universally empirical concept of truth to serve as a moral foundation literally everything is open to personal interpretation and, worse, misinterpretation.
It's not "me" you might agree with, by the way. It's Sally Yates. But I see your point re: enlisting raw appeals to emotion etc. Fascism can't be fought by standing back and hoping for the best. Action is necessary and action in this case demands that rhetoric be fought with counter-rhetoric in order to sway the undecided.
The problem, as always, is finding a way to stop the rhetoric flying for long enough to allow constructive dialogue to begin. Sadly, I don't see this happening any time soon. People would first have to learn to deal with their anger and stop viewing everyone who refuses to endorse their point of view as their mortal enemy. That's unlikely to happen while we live in a culture that feeds on vitriol and increasingly applauds bigotry and stupidity.
Thanks again for posting another well considered and thought-provoking comment.