DEMISE OF TRUTH
Whenever I see “fake news” or false advertisements, I am annoyed. Then I find some people believing such garbage and I despair. Doesn’t truth matter any more ? It seems truth is conditional; it depends what your tribe (Fox News, Republicans, or UCP) says it is. If the other tribe (CNN, Democrats, or NDP) says it, it’s fake. Or vise versa.
Napoleon Bonaparte said, “History is a pack of lies agreed upon.” Karl Marx says, truth is what the owner of the means of production says it is: “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” When the World War II ended in 1945, we the Japanese school kids had to cleanse text books of “falsehood.” We blacked out lines and cut out pages as dictated by the Allied Occupation Forces. So people were desperate to redefine “who we are.” They flocked to the churches and the temples to repair badly damaged self-esteem and find new identity. Esoteric religious sects appeared and disappeared.
Nobody can survive loathing oneself too long. But today we have no place to go to feel good about ourselves, because we have not created the institution to replace discredited legends and myths. Kenan Malik in the Weekly Guardian, April 18, expresses fear that “We have lost faith in God as well as in reason.” Churches are in decline in Europe and North America. Many people say they are “spiritual not religious” and are suspicious of institutions; quite rightly probably.
Malik continues, “Our failure to create social movements that fill the space vacated by the church (synagogue or temple) had left people feeling helpless” Is that why people find comfort in fake news, religious fanaticism, far-right nationalism, racism, xenophobia, or even in terrorism? Could it be why some are obsessed in the endless pursuit of pleasure that never quenches the thirst?
An Austrian psychologist and a holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, noted that those who knew their place in the world hence the meaning of their lives had better chance of survival in hell. “God is dead,” said Frederick Nietzsche, but he added, “Yet his shadow still looms.” The Guardian commentator concludes that God may be dead but “His shadow is in reality our failure to create movements and institutions that can nurture a sense of meaning, belongingness, and dignity.”
Me? I am an optimist: We are not stupid. We muddle but will find it.