Anti-Truth

One of the reasons this blog has been slower lately is I've been spending time on social media arguing politics, which is something I used to do a lot, but largely stop when this blog got going. Often I don't learn enough in these encounters to generate any blog content, except to make observations about how liberals reason.

It is obvious to everyone who stands outside The Cult that there is great irony that the left call us ignorant and hateful, and do so in a way that is very hateful and ignorant. It's psychological projection, scapegoating, and the Two-Minutes Hate all rolled in to one. They take their sins, cast them upon the other, and then viciously attack the other for being so sinful. It would all be quite amusing if it weren't for that pesky universal suffrage.

I think there is somethin deeper than scapegoating going on here. In a recent facebook exchange, which prompted me to write here, I replied to a meme & some commentary that made a blanket statement about Trump supporters. I asked for examples, which was met with the anticipated incredulity. After some exchange,  I listed a number of specific examples that would seem to contradict the premise. The response I got was that I was making overly broad generalizations.

It's a surreal thing, to have an interaction go a certain way, to have it right there in plain sight for anyone to view, and have the other party describe it as its complete opposite. You and I would never do such a thing: risk being easily contradicted and to look foolish. There's something that makes it possible for them to do so, and it has something to do with their disbelief in objective truth. That is, even though the argument clearly shows me pushing back on broad generalizations with evidence, that doesn't matter because the argument is just whatever one believes it to be. So they don't have that voice of caution which causes sane people to be very careful in their words to avoid contradicting themselves. In debate, the goal is to lead the opponent to contradict himself. But these people don't care. It's like if you pinned them in a wrestling match, and they concluded that they won because they pinned you. It's maddening, but interesting too.

I suspect there is something even deeper in all this. It's the frequency with which they proclaim the opposite of the truth. Not just something wrong, but extremely wrong. They do this all the time. We assume they are blindly allegiant to their ideology, and that they are projecting their flaws onto us. They are, but what drives them to do that? I'm quite convinced that there is something that drives them to the anti-truth. It's not that they have an opinion and can't grasp its inherent contradictions. The contradictions are the prize. There is something that drives them to anti-truth. The wronger, the better. They strive to make the truth false, and the false true.

Perhaps this is something that is already apparent to some of the readers, and I have simply been naive. I suspect that many Christians might nod along knowingly. It all feels very much like the eternal struggle between the forces of light and darkness. It's not strange that such a dichotomy might theoretically exist in the universe, and yet it is quite unsettling to experience it first-hand. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the meaning of life has something to do with some broader struggle between truth and anti-truth. Western tradition might be founded the acknowledgement of this, with its roots in Greek and Christian philosophy. The model still fits for the non-religious. Perhaps the universe is just a heat engine, and it's output is knowledge, or it's all a computer simulation...or whatever theory one might have. The eternal struggle between good and evil still remains relevant.

In our interactions with others, we aren't merely individuals connected in a web. We are also part of a front. On one side, the forces for truth, while the other side pushes anti-truth. Everyone is important. Take a step forward and the side for truth gains that little bit. Take a step back and it loses. Perhaps the meaning of life is quite simple. It is to see the forces of truth and light prevail.