Truth or Consequences Today

  By Peter Pavarini

Growing Disregard for Truth

In my blog “Politics Through the Looking Glass” https://alessandrocamp.com/2019/06/01/logic-allows-us-to-distinguish-between-good-and-bad-forms-of-reasoning/ , I said “a fact is true regardless of one’s preferences, perspectives or personal interests.” I also promised to explain why the growing disregard for truth is a major cause of political polarization in America today.

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Cordoba, Spain where Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, was born in 1135. Frankly, I knew very little about this man but I have come to appreciate his words, especially what he had to say about the truth:

The knowledge of the truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.[i]

Could this medieval wisdom be a remedy for our modern political struggle?

Finding a Way Out of the Gutter

So, how do we lift ourselves from the gutter of name-calling and sloganeering and instead have an honest debate using facts, not feelings? As I explained in my earlier blog, a logical argument does not depend entirely on the truth or falsity of the statements it uses. Logic also requires us to follow certain intellectually sound principles of reasoning. Truth, on the other hand, is not negotiable. As John F. Kennedy said:

First, what does truth require? It requires us to face the facts as they are, not to involve ourselves in self-deception; to refuse to think merely in slogans. If we are to work for the future […], let us deal with the realities as they actually are, not as they might have been, and not as we wish they were. […] The truth doesn’t die.[ii]

Politicians and pundits, especially those who call their opponents “liars” or anything they disagree with “fake news”, appear impervious to any reality they feel is inconsistent with their world view. To understand this point, consider who the “science deniers” in the debate over late term abortion, transgender rights and climate change really are. Without getting into the details of such controversial issues, try to find a Progressive who would concede that a viable, third-trimester pregnancy is a human life, that a biological male who identifies as a female remains genetically male no matter what, and that a 1.05 degree Celsius rise in average world temperatures since 1880 cannot be explained by human activity without considering other complex natural factors. Those who have these ideological views are certainly free to express their opinions, but they have no right to claim a monopoly on scientific fact.

The Tenets of Progressive Orthodoxy

What are the origins of what conservatives call “Progressive orthodoxy”?[iii] This form of thinking appears to stem from a belief that nothing can actually known for certain. In contrast to C. S. Lewis who spoke of being tethered to an immutable “measuring rod outside of those things being measured”[iv], the Progressive canon is firmly rooted in moral and factual relativism. Therefore, it’s now trendy to say “your truth is not my truth”. But isn’t that fundamentally at odds with the generally accepted definition of truth? As Pope John Paul II said:

If something is true, it must be true for all people at all times.[v]

If it doesn’t meet that standard, it’s not truth. At best, it’s an expression of one’s political will.[vi]

More importantly, the search for truth must be self-correcting. Since all people are fallible, we should expect to be wrong from time to time. And, if we genuinely want to know the truth – no matter what the cost – we are more likely to find it if we are willing to change our views when we encounter new information. Thomas Jefferson put it this way:

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, not to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it.[vii]

In the context of political speech, there should be no substitute for the unadulterated truth. Demands for individual freedom or social justice sound hollow unless they are grounded in incontrovertible facts – not slogans, not popular opinion, not emotion…. certainly not lies. Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized that “repetition does not transform a lie into a truth,”[viii] Yet, in an era of mass communication, 24/7 news and ubiquitous social media, that’s precisely the danger we face.

Who Can We Believe?

This brings us to the heart of the matter. Who can be trusted to tell the truth?

The mainstream media have dubbed Donald Trump our “liar-in-chief”. They’ve dedicated an entire website to debunking every questionable statement he’s made since declaring his candidacy using a so-called “Truth-o-Meter”[ix]. I didn’t have time to read their diagnosis of thousands of statements reportedly made by our president, but the majority of those classified as “lies” seem to be no more than quibbling over the kind of inexact or hyperbolic language most politicians use. The rest can be attributed to ideological differences about how to interpret facts reported by others. Interestingly, Trump has often been ahead of what the media and the general public knows (e.g., Democrats want to give illegal aliens free health care, Trump Tower was spied on during the 2016 campaign).

Calling a president with whom you disagree a liar is nothing new.[x]  What is different about the current Administration is the media’s unwillingness to acknowledge that Trump is actually doing what he promised to do during his 2016 campaign. Unlike his predecessors, this president felt an obligation to the American people to deliver on his promises. I can understand why those who didn’t vote for him aren’t happy about that, but no “lie” is more consequential than a presidential candidate who promises things he or she knows cannot be delivered.

Now that the first round of Democratic debates is over, and the public has been given an opportunity to compare and contrast the 20 candidates on that stage, it isn’t too soon to subject the promises I’ve been hearing to my trusty old Truth-o-Meter. I really should bring it in for a tune-up or at least have it recalibrated for candidates who have:

• Plagiarized papers in law school and speeches on the campaign trail
• Claimed Native-American heritage with no credible evidence
• Used an adulterous affair with the married mayor of a major city to launch her career
• Lied about his family background to create a bogus backstory of poverty and homelessness
• Said he wants to work with “everyone and reach all communities” but “if you support Justice Kavanaugh, you’re complicit in evil”
• Bluntly denied that she would be running for president during her 2018 senatorial campaign after pledging she would serve out her full term
• Claimed that 90% of the work product of a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court had been withheld from the public when in fact over 500,000 pages had already been released and half of that was already available for public viewing
• Said he’d bring a lie detector to a debate with Trump after saying greenhouse gas emissions did not go up after Vermont closed its nuclear plant (when that state’s own EPA said emissions increased twice the national average during a 15-year period)

When political will takes precedence over truth, we the people have nothing based in law, ethics or morality to guide the workings of our society.  All that’s left is raw power, and that’s something everyone – no matter what their politics – should fear.

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[i] , Moses Maimonides, “Guide for the Perplexed”, Moses Maimonides (2016) p. 1029.

[ii] John F. Kennedy, Address at the Free University of Berlin June 26, 1963, see Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

[iii] David French, “Progressive Orthodoxy Narrows Choices and Minds”, New York Times, November 25, 2016.

[iv] Linny Dey, “C. S. Lewis on the Medieval vs. the Modern Vision of Reality” at https://static1.squarespace.com .

[v] Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998, www.vatican.va .

[vi] David Roberts, “What is political will anyway? Scholars take a whack at defining it,” Vox, December 24, 2017.

[vii] Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to Roscoe, dated December 27, 1820, in L & B, 15:303, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.

[viii] Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, October 26, 1939.

[ix] www.Politifact.com 

[x] Eric Alterman, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences, Viking, 2004; Lee Edwards, “The Massive Lies of Past Presidents Make Trump Look Honest”, The Heritage Foundation, August 24, 2018.