Hearts and prayers to everyone mourning “the death of truth.”
The news and opinion site, Vox, just reported this terrible loss. Will flags be at half-staff in Washington DC? Hard to say, considering the issues some elected leaders in DC seem to be having with the good, old truth.
But before getting to that, there is this, as well, about another member of our society with health issues… a stubborn, cantankerous old coot I’ve known for 40 years, or so. Public opinion.
All those years, trying to understand this frustrating, fascinating acquaintance I was attempting to manage, throughout my career.
Good, old mercurial public opinion, always shifting one way or another. Good, old amorphous public opinion, exhibiting, as dictionaries define the word, little “fixed form or shape.” With the exception, perhaps, of folks with fixed, rigid beliefs, especially when they’re expressing political opinions. How is it possible, I’ve often wondered, to shape mercurial, amorphous and, sometimes, rigid opinions?
That’s challenging enough, in business, and ridiculously challenging, with the growing, harsh political partisanship we’ve seen over – what is it, now? – the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama years in the Oval Office?
That’s why I’ve been writing about politics and politicians… trying, somehow, to figure out that which may very well be incomprehensible.
And on top of that, we have the more recent, new norm of politicians disparaging political correctness and flouting the nation’s balance of power, checks and balances and the rule of law. While there’s concern about this, the flouting goes on, increasingly, and often at warp speed. I suppose it’s the forces in play… their terribly twisted, confounding, outlandish communication contributing to this new norm. Their spin, perhaps, is like no other spin we’ve experienced before.
The article in Vox puts in perspective what we are seeing unfolding before us. This “death of truth.”
Politics is contentious, that’s a given, and that’s okay, as long as politicians, at least, attempt to discuss issues in at least a somewhat civilized and constructive way. But, when a politician, in one of the nation’s major political parties, is suggesting, just recently, that an opponent in the other major party will “hurt the Bible” and “hurt God,” and “will disappear all religions in America”… that’s like nothing we’ve heard before.
Maybe there’s some PR god who can get his or her arms around this “death of truth” conundrum… before, as others have said in the news, the country’s driven off the cliff.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.