Believe Me?

If our exalted Orange leader has destroyed anything more than our standing in the world it is our understanding of the truth. By constantly ignoring the reality in front of him, he has undermined even our typically slender knowledge of what is actually going on. I say “typically slender knowledge” because, really, what the fuck do we really know?

Iwas reminded of this hardly original thought in an original way by reading a short story called, “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang. The story examines the implications of a future world where devices can be implanted in people so that their every move is recorded. This way, the past is completely retrievable. It can’t be distorted. It can’t be lied about. The story implies that this may be the logical progression of human communication. When memory was communicated only by word of mouth, it could not be said to have been an absolute reconstruction. Then, writing came along and words on paper were deemed to be a better picture of the past. Now, video recordings are frequent and they are our standard for proof. Maybe some day videos will be omnipresent and doubts about prior events will be removed. But, the story also raises the question about whether any medium of reconstruction can truly be said to be true. 

Our methods of establishing the truth of things are, necessarily imperfect. Why, for example, do we think a person’s notes of a conversation are more credible than an oral recollection? Why couldn’t people take phony notes just as easily as they could tell a phony story? Yet, rules of evidence in court give more credit to the notes, and the Impeachment Managers will repeatedly say that Ambassador Bill Taylor’s testimony should be believed because that’s what his notes say. Even the recorded lives in Ted Chiang’s story couldn’t be absolutely true unless the pictures included a person’s motivations, intentions, feelings and other intangibles.

Because we can never be sure what’s true, we have to make concessions. We have to believe something. But, our standard for what to believe should be very high. In the commercial world, we have already given up on that. From the days of literally selling “snake oil” to now being told that “Red Bull gives you wings,” we don’t hold advertising to any standard of reality. In a recent opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals said that there was nothing wrong with Diet Dr. Pepper calling itself “Diet” even though it doesn’t help you lose weight. Huh? Really?

But, governing is not selling soda. Governing requires some semblance of accuracy in information. Trump has now brought us to the brink of war. Can we believe him when he tells us why he’s done that? Not even close. Because our relationship to the truth is already tangential, what Trump the Stump has done is all the more tragic. 

Put that high on the list of villainies.