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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Some things I think about politics | DBMS 2 : DataBase Management System Services on February 16th, 2018 2:23 am

[…] Some say our troubles are due to a deliberate war on truth and democracy. Some say they’re just consequences of broad, long-running trends. I think both views are partially correct. […]
Five categories of persuasion | Strategic Messaging on March 19th, 2018 12:48 am

[…] minds can be changed. The War on Truth is not […]
Modifying beliefs | Strategic Messaging on March 19th, 2018 12:49 am

[…] Changing somebody’s mind is particularly hard in our current hyper-partisan, truth-challenged political environment. Yet political swings are common. How can that […]
Politics can be overwhelming | DBMS 2 : DataBase Management System Services on May 19th, 2018 4:16 pm

[…] ones on “Modifying beliefs” (which will include some technology marketing advice) and “The war on truth and democracy” (which will argue that part — and only part — of what’s going on is properly […]
How to beat "fake news" | DBMS 2 : DataBase Management System Services on June 27th, 2019 5:42 am

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