tijaco

There is a kind of resigned acceptance that comes over me nowadays when I find out about some other part of the world that is shrouded in lies. Most recently it was the workings of the aged care sector and the lobbyists that profit off of the suffering of our society’s most vulnerable. Before that, was the realities of China on several fronts and how misled the public is on those issues. There always seems to be an incentive for the people who commit these actions and fall into spreading these lies. But it is rare to see people who are very conscious of it, or even someone who wants to be conscious of it.

I guess this is our world. We are shrouded in lies to the point where we don’t even want to know what is true. That would take too much effort. Instead, we follow the path of least resistance. We take the paths outlined for us and are led down these paths the direction of which we never question and the destination of which we never consider. If this really is how our world operates, it should be easier to predict the future, in a Hari Seldon sense (read Foundation by Isaac Asimov).

This follows from the idea that we do not have free will on a micro level, but now it is applied to the macro level. If we have limited free will, on what basis can we lay claim to free will on the macro. Of course, this is a simplistic way of looking at things. In the moment, rather than in the ‘narrating self’ which is detached from the moment, we do have choices. But they are fleeting and mostly predictable. Those with instilled values in one direction will generally behave in that singular direction.

This means that self-serving lies only perpetuate themselves. We lie that the West isn’t under the influence of its own propaganda (read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky) to keep people from questioning the narrative. We lie that our economy operates like a household (read The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton) in order to keep the public from creating a more empowered future. We lie that workplaces must be operated in a top-down power structure in order to function (read Democracy at Work by Richard D. Wolff) in order to conserve the powerful and monied interests.

These lies among countless others allow us to maintain our social cohesion. But this isn’t to say that these particular lies are necessary for social cohesion. There are many different fictions that would serve the same purpose (read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari). Science is in some sense becoming the new socially cohesive factor, although it seems to remove the fiction and just admit that we don’t know. The social cohesion gained from everyone having trust in this singular concept that is ‘science’ is gaining momentum. But in an era of post-truth and alternative facts, we need to maintain the critical thinking that goes to the core of this science.

There is a strange paradox that comes with reading a lot of books and dedicating my waking life to learning about the world. On one hand, the more I read the more I want to engage with the world, to learn more and more so that I have far less topics on which I am ignorant. On the other hand, there is a part of me that, the more I read, becomes disenfranchised with the world. There is less and less with which I can connect because I realise just how little of the world is based on reality and facts.

There are comical parts at which I laugh at how stupid some of the most educated experts must be on some topics. And there are other parts where I dismay at how backward our world really is and how difficult it is to change it for the better. After a period of rest, there is always a renewed hunger for more and a renewed sense that there are things that have the ability to change, however small.

Lying seems at the core of these challenges. Truth seems to be the peak of good. If the world is more truthful, or more scientific, or more honest, however you would like to phrase it, the world will be a better place. That is my theory. There are plenty of potential win-win situations that are currently set to lose-lose. With truth, honesty and the dispelling of lies, there solutions will not only be obvious to all, but will be implemented.

That brings me to the other value that I hold so dear – democracy. While many Westerners would posit that we already have democracy and that it is far better than authoritarianism, I would disagree on both fronts. By my definition, we don’t have democracy until our workplaces are democratic. And by the current definition, democracy hasn’t enough evidence to prove itself better than authoritarianism. A quick comparison of poverty rates between China and the United States provides plenty enough evidence to the contrary.

I believe that democracy, along with truth, is the key. The two seem almost to be tied like the chicken and the egg. If there were democracy, we would be more truthful. If we were truthful with each other, we would decide on democracy. Both these words are overused, and their meanings distorted regularly. So long as they are properly defined and applied in all aspects of life, it seems that the world would be a better place.