Politics
Why Do Tyrants Insist We Live in a Post-Truth World?
Let’s examine their claim to see. On its surface, the assertion that we live in a post-truth world is self-contradictory. They are asserting that there is no truth, and that’s the truth. It could not be valid if there is no truth.
Perhaps we do live in a Universe where nothing is inherently true with a capital “T.” That is, at the most fundamental level, it could be that indeterminacy rules and no amount of knowledge of prior conditions would be enough to let a colossal supercomputer predict what would happen next. It does not ‘appear’ that such is the case. At the macro level, everything appears to work predictably by cause and effect. Even the quantum world works according to probabilities.
Fortunately, acting as if the Universe is reliably rule-based and the rules don’t often change works just fine for human endeavors. But we’re hearing politicians and pundits today tell us we’re now in a post-truth world where 1 + 1 = whatever you want it to equal. This lie relies on a bit of clever spin. The claimant reminds us that opinions are just that, personal beliefs, and not hard facts. But of course, math problems don’t ask us for a viewpoint, they ask us for a matter of fact. We know 1 + 1 = 2, and if someone believes that it equals any other answer, they are mistaken.
Imagine you are in a windowless room, and you just awoke to see the wall clock says it is 1:00. You’re in Kansas. 1:00 could be AM or PM. In a windowless room, you might have no idea which is the right answer. You might have a gut feeling it’s 1:00 PM, and another person just waking in the same room might be sure it’s 1:00 AM. But you aren’t both equally right. If you open the door and look outside, the Sun would be brightly lighting the day at 1:00 PM, and it would be near pitch dark at 1:00 AM.
It’s essential to keep objective truths and subjective opinions separate and know which is which. Tyrants hate the truth because their power arises from the web of deceit they spread. George Orwell was pointing to this fact when he wrote, in 1984, “The final, most essential command of the Party is telling people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.”