We are in a post-truth world. Why? Because truth is no
longer a priority for us. We’ve become so used to accepting lies that we no
longer have the capacity for discerning what is real and what is fake, what has
merit and what is without substance.
We live in a world in which spin is in the very air we
breathe. We are bombarded by advertisement nearly every waking moment, and
advertisement has no interest in giving an honest or balanced perspective.
Though I am probably wrong, I can’t help thinking television has more ads than
content, each ad pushing an agenda, an agenda which is not the pursuit of
truth. And the programming itself must not in any way countermand the essential
ideas the ads are pushing or else the advertisers will withhold their business.
Turn off the television. You will still be surrounded by the
distortions of those trying to affect the way you perceive the world. Use your
cell phone to Google something and you will be subject to advertisement, though
most times you won’t recognize it as such. While you may be annoyed by the
delays caused by ads on YouTube, you likely won’t even notice them when on
Facebook.
Take a drive and try to unwind. The radio is there to sell
you something, and it’s not appealing to your desire for truth and reason. Turn
the radio off, you still can’t avoid the billboards, even though you may not be
consciously aware of them. You think you’re not affected but they wouldn’t
spend billions of dollars for access to your mind if they weren’t confident of
achieving the intended result. While not interested in truth, they are very
alert and in tune when it comes to return on investment.
Lies, spin, and distraction are the building blocks of our
culture. Money and power warp
truth the same way time and space are bent by gravity.
Facts are no longer pieces we assemble in order to build a
better picture of the truth but instead are stones that we can load into our
slingshot and fling at others. The idea of a greater, knowable and
understandable truth has become a foreign concept to us. Our political
discussions are no longer between two sides earnestly attempting to get to the
truth but cheap theatrics or gladiatorial combat.
Why? Is it because we are the first generation to come to
grips with the cold hard truth that reality is unknowable? Have all previous
attempts to understand the world we live in been vain attempts by more naïve
and less worldly societies than our own? I guess the answer would be yes for
those who don’t wish to do the hard work of winnowing their way closer to truth
and a firmer grasp on our world. It is the easy answer, the kind that helps us
avoid making difficult choices and being in control of our lives. It’s much
easier to accept what is given us by the propaganda machine and the politicians
bought by moneyed interests that don’t have your best interests at heart.
Do we search for truth when it comes to politics nowadays or
do we look to be persuaded by those who are telling us what we want to hear?
Because what we want to hear is not the truth but the lies. Republicans just
want to hear about the lies of the Democrats, and the Democrats just want to
hear about the lies of the Republicans. And if you’re like me, you see the lies
of both. But nobody seems to see the truth when it is spoken. Nobody’s
interested in it. Who could stand the idea that no matter what side you’re on
you still need input from the other side, you still need to balance your point
of view with one different from your own? Simplicity, that’s what we want, and
the best way to achieve that is to allow some authority to tell us what to
think.
You see, if you start listening and not only listening but
really looking for the truth in what the other side has to say, then you have
to start living in a more complex world. Because while we can reach more
closely towards truth than we are now doing, we never actually arrive at it. Truth
is something bigger than can ever be stuffed inside our tiny little skulls. To
seek truth is to have to admit we don’t know everything, that sometimes we have
to add a third option between the true and the false, a holding stage where we
keep ideas until we have further evidence. We would need to accept ambiguity,
and in accepting ambiguity, we would need to accept intellectual humility.
Fundamentalism is a much easier way of seeing the world.
Choose a simplistic idea and make your every observation be colored by it. Facts
then no longer sting when you are hit by them. You simply choose the ones you
wish and dismiss as lies those that cause discomfort.
And that is the point where we are now at. One side is
incapable of listening to the other side because if they do they might be
inconvenienced. They might be taken out of their comfort zone, forced to
confront unpleasant and complex ideas to which there are no easy answers.
We’ve been doing it for a while now. And once you start down
that path, once you start veering from the truth in favor of ideology, you get
further and further from the truth. And the further from the truth you are the
more you depend on your simplistic ideology to keep you feeling secure. It’s a
vicious cycle that never ends well. It’s the same sort of magical thinking that
a drug addict uses. Slowly they cut ties with those who tell them they are
living in denial. They seek the company of other drug addicts, those who won’t
tell them their behavior is destructive. They build around them a protective
bubble for safety.
But such protection is illusory and temporary. Without a
widespread foundation a tower will surely fall. Similarly, belief systems
established on a single viewpoint will also come crashing to the ground. Trying
to base your understanding of life on one point of view is like trying to sit
on a one-legged stool. You need balance, you need perspective. You need to
weigh one point of view with another.
Our fundamentalism, at least the fundamentalism practiced by
those in places of power in society today, is capitalism and an actual
religious belief in the “magic of the free market” to provide all of humanity’s
needs. This fundamentalism requires us to disregard all the other foundations
upon which societies have been built throughout history. Responsibility to
others, civic duty, religious principles, they are either dismissed altogether,
given mere lip service, or else twisted into some freakish semblance of their
true shape in order to have them fit into the dominant, simplistic paradigm.
On some level we see through the lies we are told. We yet
retain some memories of and appreciation for the morals and viewpoints we once
held, that have been held by any healthy family, clan, community or society on
the ascent. On some level we know we are living a lie. But the fear that
results from our uncertainty when what we feel is so completely at odds with
what we are being told tends to stifle us, or else it leads to reacting to the
dissonance in unhealthy ways. Denial. Anger. Avoidance.
It is time to abandon the simplistic ideologies that lead us
further and further from reality. It is time to tear through the curtain that
we have placed over the window so we don’t have to face the truth. It may be
unpleasant but it is the only way that will lead us from the dungeon of
delusion in which we’ve been living. One way or another the truth will
eventually come crashing through our cocoon of fantasy we’ve been spinning, it
is best we make the choice to emerge from it on our own. Only in that way can
we achieve the metamorphosis necessary to rise and meet our future.
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