What Have We Built? (24 x 24, $450)
The country of my birth (and the birth of at least five generations of my direct forebears) is more deeply divided now than it’s been since the Civil War. And the most dangerous thing about today’s division is that a large group of our citizens find themselves utterly beyond the reach of fact and reason. They have succumbed to the insidious belief that belief is all that matters, that all facts are relative and that science is an anti-religious plot. They have elected as their standard-bearer a reality show star with dubious business credentials and they cheer shamelessly at his invective-laden lies du jour and eagerly transmit fake news created by amoral entrepreneurs and Russian operatives who have never believed in the American version of democracy and who are now undoubtedly wriggling with delight at its demise.
How did we come to this? It hasn’t happened overnight. We’ve seen it coming (or should have) for a long time, primarily in our schools, in our courts of law, and in our newspapers.
In our schools, teachers became too timid to speak with conviction about the scientific facts of climate and evolution. They accepted bullshit as a “science project” and rewarded pretty presentations more highly than ragged attempts to grapple with truth. Schools backed off too readily when parents objected to particular literary works or found new historical research findings incompatible with what they were taught when they were in school. And if the teachers were resistant (and many, God bless them, were) then the science deniers and history skeptics took control of school boards and pushed their agenda harder.
In our courts, lawyers increasingly found it easier to plant seeds of doubt rather than assemble hard evidence to support their cases. Discrediting opponents via query and innuendo and disputing their stories via hand-picked “experts” who could be relied on to say what was needed became accepted practice. Lawyers became adept at obfuscating the very nature of facts and truth and were highly rewarded for their skill.
In our newspapers, editors tried too hard to provide “balanced” coverage and thereby led readers to believe that points of view with no basis in fact or logic had equal merit with the views of highly educated and experienced professionals, people who had dedicated their lives to investigating the subjects in question. As the digital age impinged upon journalism, selling papers or garnering viewers and clicks became more and more challenging and a hot story became more important than in-depth coverage. They printed or broadcast anything anyone in the public eye said and rarely bothered to follow up with fact-checking. As long as they had a source on the record, they put it out there for the public to consume.
So here we are, weeks away from the official launch of the Trumpocracy.
I don’t know where we go from here. What I do know is that we must stay focused on verifiable fact, sound logic, and reasoned argument and that we must do that because that is who we are. We are people who cannot give in to the desire to fight bias with bias. We are well aware that those on the other side cannot be swayed by fact, logic, and reason. Nonetheless, we soldier on, speaking truth, marshaling facts, reasoning logically, and knowing that we don’t stand a chance unless we know precisely where we stand: We do not stand united.
Donna Dechen Birdwell 