{"id":6547,"date":"2023-07-21T10:15:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T14:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=6547"},"modified":"2023-07-21T10:15:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T14:15:39","slug":"geometry-of-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2023\/07\/21\/geometry-of-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Geometry of Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who\u2019s Fooled<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is a political science axiom:\u00a0\u00a0if you repeat the same thing, over and over again, ultimately, no matter how absurd, a percentage of the population will believe it\u2019s true.\u00a0\u00a0Abraham Lincoln (may have) said it best:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And there is a further \u201ccorollary\u201d to that axiom:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf you\u2019re going to tell a lie, make it a whopper\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0No one would believe you would tell THAT big a falsehood.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t need to infringe on \u201cGodwin\u2019s Law<\/a>\u201d for an example of this.\u00a0\u00a0Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin in the 1950\u2019s proved the point in a speech to the Women\u2019s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. He held up a sheaf of papers and said he had the names of \u201c\u2026two hundred known Communists in the State Department\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He didn\u2019t; there weren\u2019t even names on the papers, but it didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0McCarthy started an era of distrust in American institutions, from the Government to the movies, that still echoes to this day.\u00a0\u00a0And even though McCarthy was ultimately repudiated (\u201c\u2026have you no sense of decency sir\u201d), an entire era of American History carries his name, and his \u201cBig Lie\u201d; McCarthyism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-Truth Era<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our present \u201cPost-Truth\u201d era is saturated with \u201cBig Lies\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Just this week, Robert Kennedy Jr, the son of revered Senator Bobby Kennedy; said he wasn\u2019t against vaccines, or anti-Semitic, or racist.\u00a0\u00a0He said all of that under oath in front of a Congressional Committee, in spite of his own anti-vaccination, anti-Semitic and racist comments being read to him.\u00a0\u00a0It\u00a0\u00a0doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 we are in an era when it\u2019s OK to say something one day, lie about it the next, and deny the whole matter on the third.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State of Florida, by law, now requires schools to teach that enslaved Americans learned \u201cpersonal skills\u201d that benefitted them.\u00a0\u00a0The fact that those skills were taught not to \u201cbenefit\u201d the enslaved, but to profit the owners isn\u2019t included in the lesson plan.\u00a0\u00a0But in our current \u201cPost-Truth\u201d era, manipulating historic facts to make it \u201cpalatable\u201d to some students (and more importantly, some parents) is just fine.\u00a0\u00a0Like McCarthy\u2019s names or Kennedy\u2019s anti-vaccination, it\u2019s OK to ignore the truth.\u00a0\u00a0Glad I\u2019m not teaching eighth grade history in Florida.\u00a0\u00a0Even forty years ago, I wasn\u2019t sugar-coating America\u2019s history of enslavement to my classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch \u201cconservative\u201d media.\u00a0\u00a0Joe Biden is addled, infirm, senile, AND the master of a grand \u201cBiden Crime Family\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Oh, and he\u2019s a Socialist or a Communist or some kind of \u201cist\u201d that WE DON\u2019T LIKE. (Just an aside:\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m a Liberal, a newspeak Progressive, and Biden isn\u2019t even that.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s a traditional Democratic moderate, in an era where there is little \u201cmoderation\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And climate change \u2013 well it\u2019s \u201cinevitable\u201d, nature not industry, and there\u2019s nothing we can do but apply more sunblock and run the air conditioners (electricity, 79% provided by fossil fuels).\u00a0\u00a0Sorry about that, future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Sides<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, it\u2019s not just one side of the political spectrum that is post-truth.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cMy\u201d side says that all MAGA supporters are \u201cdumb\u201d and \u201cracist\u201d and self-centered.\u00a0\u00a0While I would agree that the MAGA ideology is racist and self-centered, I know many Trump supporters who are good neighbors, and want \u201cgood\u201d for their friends, families and the Nation.\u00a0\u00a0We don\u2019t agree on how to get there. And we even don\u2019t agree on where we\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe that\u2019s the point.\u00a0\u00a0Forty years ago, when I was teaching American History to eighth graders, there was a \u201cplace\u201d in the middle where we could \u201cagree to disagree\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0We would vigorously argue our issues, but came from a single point of \u201cfact\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That point no longer exists, it\u2019s been rubbed out by the totally separate sets of \u201cpostulates\u201d that each side holds as \u201cthe truth\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My truth is no longer your truth \u2013 and perhaps that\u2019s the ONLY thing we can agree on.\u00a0\u00a0And that\u2019s not enough foundation to continue our Nation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who\u2019s Fooled There is a political science axiom:\u00a0\u00a0if you repeat the same thing, over and over again, ultimately, no matter how absurd, a percentage of the population will believe it\u2019s true.\u00a0\u00a0Abraham Lincoln (may have) said it best:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the … Continue reading “Geometry of Truth”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGeometry of Truth : Our America - 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