February 16, 2018
The wars on democracy and truth
The “War on Truth” is a new and somewhat useful cliché. But like any short phrase, it isn’t perfectly accurate. In particular:
- “Truth”* is in danger from many different threats.
- Some of those threats are surely deliberate attacks …
- … but others are not.
*There also are a number of semantic and epistemological issues around the concept of “truth”, but let’s put those aside for now
For starters, let’s note:
- Any authoritarian leader attacks democracy in his own country.
- Any authoritarian leader lies.
- If nothing else, they try to cover up their most self-serving, corrupt and/or otherwise disgusting behavior.
- Further, there’s a worldwide norm that freedom and democracy are basically good things. Thus, governments that provide little freedom or democracy need to lie to their populations by claiming one or both of:
- They’re providing more freedom and democracy than they are.
- Freedom and democracy are overrated anyway.
- Authoritarian leaders — who, as we’ve just established, tend to denigrate democracy — want supporting evidence for their claims. In particular, rivals of the United States:
- Would like US democracy, long an exemplar for the world, to be seen as working badly.
- Would like US democracy to actually work badly, both to support their anti-democratic messaging and to generally undermined their US rivals.
- Hence are motivated to directly undermine US democracy if they can successfully do so. I.e., some authoritarian leaders directly attack democracy in the US and other countries.
- All of the above are also true of authoritarian wannabes, such as Donald Trump.
If that were as far as it went, I might accept the idea of a single “War on Truth”, notwithstanding the extent to which authoritarian leaders can be enemies to each other. But we also have:
- The long-standing tendency of all politicians to lie.
- The recurring trend that people of all political persuasions may believe in conspiracy theories.
- Doubts among people of all political persuasions — most famously in the case of college students — that free, rational discourse is important.
- The much-lamented partisan fragmentation in traditional and social media alike, and the economic decline of most traditional media outlets that might be viewed as exceptions.
- The utter debasement of the United States Republican Party.
“Truth” is at risk in many ways, only some of which come in the form of coordinated, warlike attacks.
Categories: Public policy and privacy
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