Truthiness

One of the things that I come across on social media once in a while is someone who says that they want to see "conservative viewpoints" expressed in a specific place: university, a magazine or website, or, so on. I always find this somewhat troubling, because I personally don't care how someone identifies themselves politically so long as their ideas make some sense. But that's the whole problem, isn't it?

What makes sense?

I spent quite a few years at university studying philosophy, which resulted in a Master's degree in that subject. It is probably best defined as "an academic discipline that teaches you how to discern what makes sense from what doesn't". (Another common definition is "philosophy is the world's best bullshit detector".) Unfortunately, the vast majority of people haven't had any similar opportunity. Indeed, most people's education and life experience is aimed at learning to avoid questioning what they are being told. That's because their parents, teacher, priest, boss, etc, doesn't want them thinking about what they are told to think and do.

The clearest expression of this point of view that I know of comes from a 2012 Republican Party of Texas platform that listed the following view about public education:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. (page 12)

Being upset about teachers getting the kids thinking for themselves because they then start asking hard-to-answer questions is an old, established pattern in authoritarian thinking. It started when the tyranny that replaced Athenian democracy had Socrates executed.

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Yes, it's an actual word in the Merrian/Webster dictionary.
Image "harvested" from le-Mot-Juste-en-Anglais website.
Used under the "Fair Use" copyright provision.

Most people don't really like the idea of being told what to think. Instead, they want at least a "fig leaf" covering up the nonsense that they get fed. To this end, there's quite an industry devoted to the creation of "truthiness". This is a term coined by the comedian Stephen Colbert to describe what people seek who put ideology ahead of actual facts and logic.

Truthiness is an interesting concept, because it isn't, per se, a lie. That's because creating and sustaining a lie requires more effort than just tossing around truthiness. People who respond to truthiness will never put any effort into actively looking for the truth, as they simply don't care. They don't ask that propaganda be terribly convincing, only that it doesn't make the people who support it look like complete dolts. 

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I understand that the subject of this week's editorial is depressing to read. Believe me, it was even more depressing to write. But I do think that it's important for there to be places where people can talk about issues like this. I recently heard a podcast where two very successful reporters talked parenthetically about how hard it is for conventional journalism to talk about politicians who are knowingly lying to voters. It's just against the canons of objective journalism to call an elected official a damned liar to their face. (See the Ezra Klein Show podcast titled How white identity politics won the Republican civil war.)

If you agree with me that one of the few good things to come from the decline of mainstream journalism is the "opening up" that allows "taboo" subjects---like the amorality of some politicians---to be discussed, put your money where your mouth is. Support indie media through either Patreon or directly through Pay Pal. It's easier than you might think.

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A couple weeks ago I wrote an article about the recently-unveiled federal Conservative climate emergency plan. For those of you who haven't read it, one thing I did was compare a graph from the plan that purports to show the global carbon impact of Canada. According to it, Canadians are only "bit players". I contrasted it with another one that showed that per capita Canadians have one of the largest carbon footprints in the world.

So what? Lies, damn lies, and, statistics---no?

But that's not what's going on here. The Conservatives aren't lying to people, they are creating a fog of truthiness that hides the fact that a significant percentage of people in this country simply don't give a damn. I suppose this could be explained in one of several pretty horrible ways.

First, it could be that Conservatives simply don't believe that climate change exists and are too lazy to actually put much effort into thinking about whether or not their belief is actually true. That's a pretty damning thing in and of itself. "The world could be facing a tremendous catastrophe, but I don't think so and instead of educating myself I'd rather watch the basketball game."

Second, they could believe that climate change is real, but that their own ideological worldview is more important than the survival of human civilization. That's a pretty strange thing to contemplate, but I suspect that this actually describes a number of people. They are so committed to free market capitalism and libertarian ideology that they would rather strip the gears of the ecosystem and kill off hundreds of millions of people than have to contemplate an end to the status quo.

Third, there are people who simply don't care about anyone else but themselves. I've met folks like this. As one person told me with regard to housing "I don't care about my own grandchildren's lives, why should I care about anyone else?" They simply think that they will be long dead before the effects become too drastic---so don't ask them to lift a finger to avoid a worst case scenario.

Finally, there are the total and absolute cynics who are creating this idiotic policy in the first place. I cannot believe that more than a minority of the corps of Conservative website designers, policy writers, "robo call" campaign workers, musicians, candidates, fundraisers, systems analysts, etc, actually believe the nonsense they are peddling about the climate emergency. How could they? They couldn't be that stupid and still be able to do their job. But what does that say about them if they are willing to peddle complete nonsense about an existential threat to the human race just because it's good for their career? Are these people psychopaths with no sense of morality at all? 

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Stephen Colbert is a professional comedian. And it makes perfect sense that a comedian would be the person to notice this phenomenon and bring it to the attention of the citizenry. Without the prophylactic of laughter, I doubt that anyone could look at this issue and really think through the ramifications without running the risk of developing a deep despair. The ultimate conclusion that I find myself drawn towards is the idea that one of the major political parties has been taken over by---and is supported by---people totally devoid of any sort of moral compass.

Wow! Does that ever suck.

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Furthermore I say onto you. The climate emergency must be dealt with!