I find it’s increasingly difficult to have a rational conversation with ANYONE! There is so much falsehood, so much unbridled emotion and so much bitterness in communication today that it’s even hard to have a civil chat with members of my own family. While there are many topics on which we agree, there are many on which we disagree depending on what media we’ve consumed or exposure we’ve had to flak in the air! Now I’ve come across someone who has articulated the reasons for the conflict. Donald Williams, PhD is a Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College and I think he nails it:
“I frequently encounter people who do not seem to understand the difference between a fact and an assertion. To them, a “fact” is simply an assertion with which they agree. A “false fact” is an assertion with which they disagree. And “evidence” or “argument” mean repeating the assertion more loudly, more passionately, and/or with fancier rhetoric. These people appear on both sides of the political divide.
This kind of inability to participate in valid forensic reasoning has always been with us, of course. But I think at least two current influences are making it worse.
First, social media amplifies the idiocy. There used to be gatekeepers you had to get past to inundate the masses with your message. In so far as social media makes it easier (until it gets “community standards”) to make an end-run around the censors, it is a good thing. But the multiplication of mindlessness in public discourse is a huge downside. The old gatekeepers were not perfect, but they did as much good as harm. At their best, they did more good than harm. They helped to keep the grosser forms of illogic in public discourse to a minimum.
Second, the dominance of Post-Modern “theories” of various kinds in the academy has been an environmental factor that has caused this malady to mutate into even more virulent strains. Like social media but in a different way, this has neutralized some of the natural predators that used to keep it in check. Today’s students are constantly taught that objectivity is so impossible of attainment that it is dishonest to have it as a goal or even an aspiration. It is endlessly drummed into them that no one can escape the deterministic perspectivalism supposedly created by race, class, and gender.
Truth claims are automatically reduced in knee-jerk fashion to mere cynical attempts to assert power. It is not surprising that people come away believing that we really do live in a “post-truth” world. It should not be shocking that they will eventually act on that belief. Thus education, which used to inhibit the kind of thoughtlessness I am describing, now not only encourages it but actively foments it.“
THAT is why rational conversations are no longer possible. Call it brainwashing, call it attention deficit, call it lack of emotional energy…the madness continues.
For my part, I have buried myself in history books. I’m rereading the texts on world history I didn’t pay much attention to when in grade, high school and college. Having traveled to many places described in those texts, I’m reading them with a renewed interest and comprehension. Moreover, it’s giving me perspective. Great civilizations have been down the road we’re traveling before. All were eventually purged of evil and in context, what we’re experiencing now in 2022 is but a blip in history. The great journey of our own civilization – call it The Western World or America, its archetype, is following the course of all great civilizations: struggle to prosperity to a breakdown of traditional values to indolence to jealousy to war to chaos to demise.
We’re in the chaos stage. In the future as we look back on the turning point and what happened, I predict we’ll say that the post-World War II period of relative calm and “normalcy” gave rise to a “fat and happy” indolence which gave rise to the 60’s breakdown in traditional values which gave rise to the Korean and Vietnam wars as well as the more recent hegemonic quests to the chaos we’re now experiencing as the deterioration of values and moral relativism reach their peak and chaos prevails.
What do we have to look forward to? If we don’t learn from history and not just arrest this slide down the slippery slope but return to virtue, eternal truth and traditional values, we will see America continue its decline and eventually either be surpassed and taken over by an ascendant China, a militant Russia, or Armageddon will occur.
On the other hand, if we can wake up, grow up and pay attention to what I will for lack of a better term call “real reality” vs. “manufactured reality”, we can turn the chaos back into a better world for all.
Alas, I’m not very hopeful. I fail to see the leader or leaders who can inspire us sufficiently to turn the corner. I hope I’m wrong, for my children’s and my children’s children’s sake.