A grievous casualty in America’s insane ideological warfare is truth.
Although truth has been a victim of mankind’s moral and psychological frailties since the dawn of human communication, the war on truth has reached endemic intensity in today’s technologically advanced world. Modern communication technology, especially the Internet, facilitates the speedy proliferation of deceitful political propaganda, misrepresentations and outright lies.
The war on truth is fought from many sides. The main forces of falsehood include politicians and political organizations, commercial interests, foreign adversaries and the news media. All of them engage in deception, concealing or twisting the truth, and at times blatantly inventing facts, for personal gain or to promote a particular agenda.
They are all trying to sell us something — and too many folks are easily sold.
What fosters the war on truth is unquestioning belief.
Belief is not the same as knowledge. Believing that something is true is not the same as knowing that it is. Knowing requires factual evidence, direct experience, demonstrated proof through orderly observation, measurement and testing.
Wisdom is understanding that beliefs are always subject to new information, that the pursuit of truth involves altering beliefs in the face of facts. Of course, this requires an open mind free of petrified positions.
And that is where American society has stumbled. Too many people confuse belief with knowledge. They are certain that they already have the truth, so the effort of pursuing it further is unnecessary.
The forces of falsehood exploit lazy minds. Those foreign forces who employed social media to interfere with the American political process must have been delighted to discover that a significant portion of the American population are gullible morons who will swallow almost any utter nonsense — crazy conspiracy theories, fabricated facts, doctored photos and baseless accusations — as long as it supports their fixed beliefs.
Too much of the country seems to be living in an alternate dimension, a dimension of delusion that exists next to but outside reality. In this dimension beliefs are obstinately maintained as truths despite clearly credible evidence to the contrary.
The most prominent denizen of this dimension of delusion is President Donald Trump, whose mendacity is as constant as it is blatant. He is the nation’s leading salesman of bunkum and the Pied Piper of pejorative propaganda — leading the intellectually indolent into the dimension of delusion.
To end the war on truth, citizens and institutions must be careful not to participate in waging it. Major media have the key role to play in this effort. Some, like Fox News, are clearly more dedicated to a political agenda than to truth, while other news organizations are subtler but also guilty.
Having worked in the newspaper industry most of my career, including 15 years with The New York Times, I have no illusions about bias in the mainstream media. While ethical, conscientious newsrooms are supposed to separate their opinions from straight news reporting, the latter often seeps into the former.
The old five Ws and H — who, what, when, where, why and how — are the fundamental questions a news reporter is supposed to answer in the first paragraph of every story. But, read just about any newspaper and you will find this to be more often the exception than the rule.
A reader must often wade through four of five paragraphs of anecdotal storytelling before getting to the fundamental facts of the news report. The anecdote is typically an appeal to the reader’s emotions, particularly empathy or outrage. That appeal belongs on the opinion pages or maybe the features section, not on any straight news page.
Just report the facts.
The use of adjectives and adverbs to qualify the facts is another tactic to bias readers. It is a pervasive practice found in virtually all news media. For example, the Los Angeles Times had a front-page news story about Trump remaining in the White House over the holidays in which the reporter described him as “marooned” and his statements as “morose.” The story was accompanied with one of those stock photos of Trump in which he appears to be petulantly pouting.
This isn’t straight news reporting. It is slanted news and aids and abets the war on truth. Just report the facts without hyperbole — like Walter Cronkite did so diligently.
What can individuals do to end the war on truth?
Well, don’t succumb to your own ideological prejudices. Don’t spread untruths just because they support your beliefs. Before posting or sharing content on social media, conduct sufficient research to determine its veracity.
Don’t be an easy mark for the forces of falsehood. Be a hard-sell. That requires prudent skepticism and sufficient sense to detect faulty logic and baseless claims. It requires a certain level of intellectual sophistication typically acquired through education and diverse knowledge.
The sad reality is that the fundamental underlying division that foments the ideological and cultural discord in this country and fuels the war on truth is the division between people who think critically and those who do not. Stated more directly, if not crassly, it is the division between smart and stupid.
Don’t be stupid. Seek truth rather than belief.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyaalcorn@gmail.com, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.