America – The Land of Alternative Facts

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

This quote from Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been cited often but makes a vital point that is so often overlooked. Not everything is a matter of opinion. Some statements are factually based while others are not. To present both as having equal validity is flat out dishonest.

One of the most egregious examples of dishonesty was White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway arguing on Meet the Press that Press Secretary Sean Spicer's falsehoods at his first news conference were actually "alternative facts" as seen in this video link. Host Chuck Todd did his job by arguing that alternative facts are little more than falsehoods, but it's safe to say that she gained some converts into agreeing with her deception.

We have many diametrically opposing viewpoints on factual matters circulating everywhere. How do they come about? Allow me to provide a fictional example to help explain this phenomenon.

Imagine a large windowless room with a gathering of people. Somebody is curious about what is going on outside. So a couple of people volunteer to step outside and then come back inside and report to the group.

Person 1 reports that there is beautiful blue sky and sunshine out there.

Person 2 says that it's dark outside.

What to make of this? The laziest way is to just say that both are right and that each person is entitled to his own opinion. At this point, hopefully critical thinking takes over. Both can't be right on a factual matter like this. Somebody has to be wrong. The only way to settle this is to go outside and see for yourself!

But all too often, critical thinking skips town and disappears for long stretches of time. What can happen to the gathering of people in our example?

Some will say that if Person 1 says something, that's money in the bank! No need to look outside.

Others will say the same thing about Person 2.

Taken to its extreme, the two sides may argue and ridicule each other for being so stupid to believe in the Person they don't believe. The bond between Person 1 and Person 2 to each of their followers can be quite strong. Perhaps there is a relationship among friends, or relatives, or fellow members of the same political party. Unless critical thinking takes over, the two sides are at a permanent impasse.

While disagreeing on the weather outside may be harmless (with perhaps the exception of whether climate change is real), when the truth becomes optional, democracies can suffer tremendously. It has been said that democracy only functions well with an informed electorate. For those leaders who have totalitarian ambitions, undercutting the truth is one of the first steps in that direction.

There are many examples throughout history, but to list a few, Hitler had Joseph Goebbels and the former Soviet Union had Pravda which unsurprisingly translates to English as 'truth'. The US does not have the equivalent in state sponsored media, but there are many in right-wing media such as Rush Limbaugh along with Fox News personalities Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham to dispense their versions of the truth to their adoring fans. More insidious is Sinclair Broadcast Group which has not only gobbled up a huge number of television stations but is forcing its local anchors to read pro-Trump scripted messages.

Of course, the President is a major part of muddling the truth calling the mainstream media the "enemy of the people".

War reporting has never been more dangerous, as correspondents are increasingly treated not as neutral observers but legitimate targets. Now there are signs that Donald Trump and his Republican supporters are taking a similar attitude to political journalists, casting them as enemy combatants and fair game for character assassination.

The US president’s allies are reportedly carrying out “oppo research” – usually reserved for rival politicians – to compile dossiers on individual reporters in an attempt to discredit them. It is the latest front in Trump’s war on the media, which he has identified as a bigger adversary even than political challengers in next year’s election.

There are widely diverging versions of truth regarding Trump himself. His detractors like George Conway, (husband of Kellyanne of 'alternative facts' fame) have called him a sociopath. On the other hand, a majority of Republicans actually believe that Trump is a better president than Lincoln with others believing that he was sent to us by God. 

Of course, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation spread on social media and elsewhere. When the lies overwhelm the truth, trying to sort out the truth can become overwhelming which of course is the point of it all. There is an interesting quotaion, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”  But ironically, we don't know the truth on who originated it.

Ultimately, for the sake of our democracy we need to agree on basic facts. For example 2+2=4 whether one is a Democrat or Republican or whatever. When the government can convince people of false facts, like 2+2=5 as in George Orwell's 1984, we are in deep trouble!

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

In the spirit of the New Year, I would like to conclude with an excerpt from Ring out, wild bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,         

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Although this was penned in the 19th century. it couldn't be more appropriate for the present times. If I could only have one wish for 2020, it would be that in this all important presidential election year, the true wins out over the false!