I try not to delve into politics here, but sometimes the situation demands it, going beyond honest disagreement and into an attack on truth itself. My dad was a history professor. When he taught a course on The Holocaust, he told me that he was hoping to provide an inoculation, but he was worried he was providing an instruction manual. Now, it’s not my dad’s fault, but we are running the same playbook, attacking the truth, and demonizing human beings (remember “they’re eating the cats and dogs”?) to justify atrocities. Please vote accordingly.
No two people agree on everything or even see the world in exactly the same way. Colleagues, teammates, spouses, siblings, friends, neighbors, etc, will all have disagreements. We hope to handle those disagreements in good faith– this is basis of living well with other people.
With election day in the US tomorrow, I’ve been bombarded with political messages in my virtual and real mailboxes, on my TV set, and in social media. I wouldn’t expect nuanced discussions or concessions that an opponent may have valid points, but the amount of pure lying is disturbing.
I recently read Invisible Rulers, by Renée DiResta, about the way networks of people and algorithms create “bespoke realities”– we don’t even need to share reality with our neighbors or our congregation, we can have one made up just for us, which may seem appealing, as actual reality can be scary, especially when there’s a deliberate attempt to undermine truth and “flood the zone with shit”. That is where so many of us live now– that truth becomes irrelevant for many people.
(As the US VP recently said, “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy. Roger Ailes was a Nixon guy who thought Nixon could have help on to power if only he had a propaganda network to support him. He went on to start Fox News.)
Authoritarian organizations– political parties, companies, teams, gangs, abusive families, run based on the ability to tell powerful people what they want to hear. In some cases, the lies are deliberate mechanisms to separate those unwilling to debase themselves by performing the lie. Managers earn promotions by kissing up and backstabbing instead of helping their team solve customer problems. Politicians gain power by exulting the dear leader instead of making life better for citizens.
As the system slides further into surrealism, competence goes from undervalued to a threat. Leaders install subordinates not despite the lack of qualifications, but because of them. The system functions worse for most people, but those in power (those least “qualified” to serve for the common good) exploit their positions.
This is not a left-wing or right-wing phenomenon– it’s about authoritarianism, although in the US, and especially in Texas, it’s largely right-wing. And naturally in Texas, this move away from truth is accompanied by a pseudo-religious push, including requiring the display of the 10 Commandments (well, not the ones from Exodus or Deuteronomy, but a mash-up creating the Fraternal Order of the Eagles in the 1950s) in Texas schools. We even have an engraved version at the State Capitol, including “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”, although like a lot of the other commandments, they don’t seem to think it applies to them.
Get out and vote. Attacks on truth have already become attacks on people. Truth still matters. We can disagree without being dishonest.