The latest variant in the fake news phenomenon is the ‘alternative
fact’ farrago. Both of course, are intended to deceive but as Groucho said “Those
are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others” Over the
years many news organisations have been accused of distortion and even gross
deception in order to serve a narrative, but in recent years the whole business
of lying to the world has been legitimised by spin doctors who are now so bold
they can repeat a barefaced lie to camera a hundred times without batting an
eyelid.
We used to need an outlandish figure like Robert Maxwell to
carry off such astonishing effrontery but now it seems as if it is the
carefree, everyday normality of organs which should stand for truth and
justice. Ah but, whose truth and what do you mean by justice? Is it just to let
people starve while others grow fat, or is it kind to let people grow fat and
ill while others stay fit and thrive? Is welfare really a human right? And what
is the real truth behind climatological carbon? A good rule of thumb used to be
‘follow the money’, but the democratisation of lying muddies the audit trail.
We seem, many seem, to need a backing track to
our lives, a tune to sing along to, a theme to tie it all together, but why do
we think, or why do some of us think, there has to be such meaning? It used to be religion but what if –
and here’s a shock to the system – there is no order to our universe and things
just happen? Some things are true and others are not, but every now and then,
quite often if we’re honest, what we expect to be the truth turns out not to
be. A nutter kills Saint Joe Cox, which somehow proves that all who voted to
leave the EU are vexatious simpletons with Nazi sympathies. Yet looters who
plunder businesses and try to harm the police are excused because they’re upset
about the outcome of a vote.
These things aren’t really part of an organised whole,
but the extent to which some parts of the whole are organised can be telling.
It’s hard enough to distinguish truth from tittle-tattle from the vantage point
of a distant observer, but how do you do it when you are a throbbing part of the
enraged mob? Is it an ideology, or just a fun day out in town? The flimsy
rationale for some allegiances often hangs by a single thread; the left is good,
therefore the right is bad and there’s an end to it. Once you have decided
which side you’re on that side can do no wrong, but how do you break free from
groupthink?
To be able to tell fact from fiction you need to do more
than accept face-value, bias-confirming soundbites. You need to be educated but
not indoctrinated, widely read but not too fickle, informed but also incisive. Oh
and you need to be impartial, the hardest thing of all. It is said that
critical thinking skills are thin on the ground but even possessing all of the
above humans are notorious for making poor choices: ‘I can’t afford the thing,
I can’t afford the thing... Honey, I bought the even more expensive version of the thing!’
The expensive thing many seem to want to buy right now is
that life can be made wonderful by the application of government. Dream on. You
want a good life, you have to work for it. It really is as simple as that...
you just have to break free of the chains you have meticulously wrapped around
your thinking. It is nobody else’s job to make you wealthy, healthy or happy...
or wise. This, undeniably, is true, but it’s also hard. What’s the alternative?
There isn’t one, but sometimes it is just easier to accept the truth you want
to hear.
Well considered, and well said. Education let's us all down when it doesn't teach how to learn as a prime aim.
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