Truth and The Right

Lying is not a new phenomenon in public discourse (read, "politics"), any more than it is new to our human species. In fact, one of my professors told our class, by way of discussing the origins of human language, that one theory is that language was invented to allow lying.

And I have sometimes imagined, as a "thought experiment" (a term used by physicists), that perhaps, if mankind were to make contact with another intelligent species, that species might turn out to have no concept of lying and to be in fact incapable of it. Or, imagine what our world would be like if there were no lying. We are lied to not only by politicians and the like but, sadly, by our preachers and teachers (let's hope that they are not knowingly lying to us but that they believe what they are saying).

And the problem is not simply that mankind is capable of lying, but that those on the audience end believe what that hear and read. A good education--evidently a rare thing--teaches people to be critical. It's a lesson that badly needs to be learned but is seldom or not easily learned. I used to berate my (college) students for being uncritical. I would say, "I could stand up here and say 'Black is white' and it would just go mechanically into your ears, down your arms, through your pens and onto your paper."

I have blogged before about the fact that the Right disseminates a lot of misinformation (or, as I guess the new word is, dysinformation). Just as a couple examples, in a recent PBS (public television) program on John McCain (a very prominent US politician, long-serving US Senator from Arizona and opponent to Barack Obama in our presidential elections), there were scenes where a McCain supporter held a sign about his willingness to personally and physically protect his grandparents. What was that about? I believe it referred to the idea--eventually proved false--that so-called Obamacare (more formally called the Affordable Care Act) was going to promote the euthanasia of sick old people. Another lie in the same TV program was when McCain was speaking one-on-one with a woman who said, of Obama, "He's a--a--Arab," meaning, I'll assume, a Muslim. This was another lie spread by the Right (and McCain, being truly a very decent and principled man, told the woman that that was false).

Who spreads these lies? I think a main channel is conservative radio and TV commentators, but nowadays dysinformation is being spread on the Internet, on web sites, and--as we have recently learned, in a bit of a scandal--via social media such as Facebook.

There is also email. A high school classmate of mine, at one point, was forwarding to me Right-wing propaganda.  I call it propaganda because it was false and I could pretty easily learn that it was false--yet these emails had been forwarded many, many times before reaching me. And how many times were they received and read and believed?

And in the 2016 presidential election, as we know, there was wrong information being spread via Facebook, so-called "alt-right" media, and by candidates.

I am thinking mainly of Donald Trump here.  The New York Times reported that, in the course of calendar year 2017 (and thus not even during the presidential campaign), they caught Trump lying 1300 times. That's about four lies per day, right?

Is Trump an evil man who is coldly and calculatingly trying to deceive his audience (which, these days, must be taken to be the whole world)? That's not clear. Sometimes he may be voicing what is simply an incorrect statistic or other incorrect information (how that might happen might itself be a question to think about).

I'm someone who pretty generally tries to give the Devil his due. So I'm willing to say this: It may very well be that Trump genuinely believes he's doing what is best for the country. However--and there has to be a very big "however"--we must think about what Trump sees as "the country." I have to think that, in Trump's eyes, "the country" is pretty much equivalent to what we've come to call "the one percent"--that is, Trump's rich friends, those who own and control business (and politics) in the United States.

Thus, Trump talks about "getting the EPA off our backs." By this he means relieving or alleviating the "burden" of regulation on businesses under, for example, The Clean Water Act, which Trump has nullified. This means businesses can operate with less care (and cost) due to regulations on, for example, their pouring pollutants into our rivers and streams. Yes, better for Business--but not better for America's children who might be made ill, stunted, deformed by drinking water contaminated with harmful chemicals.

Copyright © 2018 by Richard Stein