A recent New York Times editorial, Truth and Lies in the Age of Trump, took up, again, the issue of truth vs. lies, the denial and denigration of facts, or whose reality do Trump supporters live in. Other commentary in the NYT and elsewhere have examined fake news, the Nazi-perfected tactic of repeating a lie often enough that people will believe it, or a post-modern distrust of the concept that a provable reality exists, and have suggested that these all have combined in a perfect storm to produce an unworkable political divide that resulted in the rise of Donald Trump.
Sunday’s editorial touched on another thread:
“In a confusing world of competing, shouted “truths,” the simplest solution is to trust in your leader.”
The editorial writers lamented the demise of a time when Americans could rely on the media — CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, established newspapers including the New York Times itself — to sift through competing “truths” and relay hard facts on which to base opinions and behavior.
The editorial didn’t mention him, but I thought of Edward R. Murrow, who gained the trust of his audience as a radio correspondent in London during World War II. (Before my time, but I paid attention to my parents reminiscing and to media retrospectives.) So when Murrow moved to TV in the 1950s and called out Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House of Representatives’ UnAmerican Activities Committee as “un-American” itself, people believed him, and McCarthyism was discredited.
When I read comments below news stories in the NYT and other newspapers, or in Daily Kos and Truthout and other news blogs, I often sense that people are looking for guidance or are lamenting a lack of a common purpose and regard for one another. It’s found in comments of nearly every violent crime — why is our community so degenerate and vicious? And the comments leading up to the election were almost as contemptuous of people on the “other side” of the divide (regardless of which side one was writing from) as they have been afterward.
It’s not just differences of opinion. It’s a massive loss of trust. We do not trust each other, much less the media from which we receive our information. We do not trust our leaders or their spokespeople. We do not trust our neighbors. Perhaps we do not even trust ourselves.
The NYT editorial focuses on the lack of trust of the media and poses a hope that America could again have “a culture of commonly accepted facts”:
Without a Walter Cronkite to guide them, how can Americans find the path back to a culture of commonly accepted facts, the building blocks of democracy? A president and other politicians who care about the truth could certainly help them along. In the absence of leaders like that, media organizations that report fact without regard for partisanship, and citizens who think for themselves, will need to light the way.
But I doubt that we will ever have a “culture of commonly accepted facts.” Or perhaps more to the point, a culture of commonly accepted facts does us no good without a culture of commonly accepted ethics. The most basic ethic is that every person is valuable and “endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” in the language of the Declaration of Independence. While one can argue whether the authors of the Declaration included all of humanity in their manifesto, the full ethic demands nothing less.
Another lost ethic that we must regain is that the common good is a higher priority than individual gain, especially if it comes at the expense of another who is more needy. The Preamble to the Constitution expresses it succinctly:
to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
I discuss these two basic ethics using national scripture, because our faith and trust in biblical scripture is even lower than our faith in newspapers or TV news. A return to biblical prophets would be helpful — one might say profitable — for those looking for a way to “make America great again.”
Over and over again, the prophets in the Old Testament called on Israel’s leaders to pay attention to the needs of the poor and disabled, widows and orphans who had no means of support, and justice for all. The leaders didn’t listen. They were blinded by scripture that called them a chosen people, without reading the rest of the story that said such chosen-ness came with responsibilities.
Jesus said the same thing in the New Testament: “Whatever you do for the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” (Matt. 25:40) A version of the Golden Rule —“Do unto others as you would have them do to you”— can be found in the sacred texts of a dozen religions past and current.
Who do we trust? It’s a two-part answer. The Golden Rule says if you want to be able to trust others, you must be trustworthy yourself. I interpret the NYT editorial as saying basically that. Show the people reeling from the cacophony of lies that trustworthy sources of fact still exist.
But history shows that human beings are rarely up to the job of selfless trustworthiness full time. Especially if they are living just for themselves and their tribe. For America to rise above selfishness, tribalism, lies and distrust, we need to listen to God — whether our name for the divine is Adonai, Allah, Jesus, a higher power or a spirit within. The divine voice offers a simple ethic: “Love your neighbor.”
That is one of the two basic commandments offered by the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The other is to love God. For all those adamant atheists who would call such a commandment belief in fairy tales, I suggest an acknowledgment of a higher power in the mode of 12-step self-help programs. In my definition, to “love God” simply means to acknowledge that there could be a positive power in the world that cares — however distantly it might feel to a specific individual— for all creatures, including humans. Thus, those two commandments are these:
To have the humility to acknowledge a positive power in the world that transcends human power
To translate the love of self and tribe into a love of humankind, in all its individual persons.
Who can we trust? God and the ultimate positive force of reaching for the common good. How do we trust? By recognizing the value of every fellow human and reaching for love and understanding.
What does the lord require of you but to seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. Micah 6:8