The Triumph of Anti-Truth

Not long ago, human civilizations fought over what was true. Our battles (even physical ones) began in the arena of ideas. One side would insist that their beliefs were true. The other side would oppose them, advocating for their beliefs. Both sides agreed to the terms of the battle – that truth was knowable. Both sides agreed that the arena existed. The existence of knowable truth was not up for debate because the world constantly reminded us that reality did not move. Joy, pain, birth, and death grounded us in the reality of our temporal existence, which could not be changed by our feelings or our personal beliefs. We were subject to reality, not the other way around.

Yet as we leveraged revelation and human civilization to attain greater individual wealth and power, we forgot that the blessings of truth were given to us – not invented by us – and we forged out on our own – eventually disbelieving in the existence of truth itself. In our blessing, we faced no immediate consequences for inventing our own individual truth even as we continued to live within the truth safety net built by our forefathers. Now our truthless “reality” is rapidly laying the groundwork for societal destruction. We are in the age of anti-truth.

What did we expect? In a world that has jettisoned objective truth in favor of subjective, feelings-based reality (and been given the technological tools to make this “truth” a reality), can we really be surprised that our government stands on the precipice of codifying a wholesale rejection of basic biology?

The “party of science” has passed the so-called Equality Act, which redefines the legally-recognized biological, scientific distinctions of male and female to include any subjective definition a person wishes to label themselves with – and forces other people to recognize it as true. Beyond the abject absurdity of ignoring scientific reality entirely by claiming a biological male or female becomes something else by simply declaring it so, the United States House of Representatives is willing to put the force of law behind these delusions and punish Americans who do not go along – including (and likely especially) religious institutions who insist on employing people who share their religion.

Ours is a society that is so sick with the curse of godless postmodernism that it has lost the ability to discern basic reality. Whether it is political correctness, coronavirus panic, or this latest assault on basic observable science, people believe what their feelings and their devices tell them instead of what is real, and we are willing to give our government leaders the right to force anti-truth on us. We have exchanged revealed, unchanging truth and the wisdom of centuries of human civilization for a society that sees anti-truth as a virtue. And no amount of personal loneliness, disillusionment, loss of meaning or sociological pathology can convince us that this new virtual dystopia is not a good thing. After all, we now have the power to craft our personal realities to our liking and banish anyone or anything that doesn’t agree with our feelings.

We have all become little gods, ruling over our personal digital fiefdoms where no delusion is off limits or challenged by reality, and now the truthless leaders we have elected are intent on bringing these delusions into the real world. Not because they are real, of course, but because we have given them the power to force people to accept what is patently false.

Much like children who rely on emotions to navigate life, our society is full of grown adults who have no grounding in truth beyond their own feelings and the artificial social pressure placed on them through their addiction to social media. Their beliefs (or at least the ones they will express) are now determined by the anti-truth mob, and the unpardonable sin has become telling another person they are wrong. Now disconnected not just from historical truth but from truth itself, we are easily manipulated into allowing a perpetual slide into immorality, where nothing can be declared wrong except the historical tradition of declaring what is right and wrong.

The danger is not from those who have unapologetically and vocally sided with anti-truth. The danger is from those who – because they long ago subjugated truth to subjectivity – no longer possess the moral credibility to declare anything wrong, no matter how bizarre, damaging, or immoral.

God help us.