Depolarization

Mike Caulfield speaks out for depolarization, and I think he is right. It seems like the only viable way to cope with the current cold war of lies.

The noble struggle for ‘truth’ reminds me of demanding some kind of ‘peace’ to end war — which was a big topic when I was young. Just as peace was often meant to be more than merely the end of war, truth is not the logical negation of lying. Not lying is the negation of lying, because truth it is not a simple binary thing, as Jenny Mackness’ thoughtful post impressively shows.

And lies have more in common with war. Accusing each other as liars, is like the brutal machinery of ‘kill or be killed’ that can’t be escaped: Once somebody threatens my credibility with calling me a liar, I have to destroy his or her credibility, because otherwise I will be very ‘dead’ in our information society. In fact, the defenders of a liar often honestly believe that the other side lies even more. And we won’t convince them with an arms-race of ridiculing, if they, for whatever reason, just distrust those who ‘own’ the truth.