What Do You Do When A Society Lies to Itself?

Why America Doesn’t Speak the Language of Reason Anymore

Image Credit: Jim Mone

Those of us who think of ourselves, perhaps a little nobly, as fine, reasonable people tend to share a belief: the American right is divorced from reality. By this, we mean science — “they” don’t believe in evolution, climate change, the value of immigration, all things that exist to us.

But I think we give ourselves too much credit. That’s only half the story.

I’ve been thinking a lot about truth. How it died. Why there seems to be a black hole at the heart of our societies, made of lies, Big Lies, and Bigger Lies. A democracy can’t function that way — in the absence of truth. Covid is “over,” even though it’s surging again. Global warming is “climate change,” named by a right-wing spin doctor to hide how dangerous it really is.

Which raises the question. How can you fight something if you can’t name it truthfully?

America doesn’t speak the language of reason anymore. One half of the story is that the American right is divorced from empiricial, factual, rational reality. But the other half of the story is that the American center and left are divorced from historical, social, and economic reality. Together, that means that America has a Reality Problem. American discourse is becoming empty of empirical reality, on any level whatsoever — not just “scientific” facts, but historical, social, and political truths, too. And that is every bit as much the fault of the left as the right.