Truth is a lie.
According to anyone that's not you. Example: Donald Trump.
Ah, the cancer patient is fine for now. He seems delighted after your conversation with him, like a weight has been lifted off his chest. I don’t know what you said, but I know it’s from your best conscience.
Oh, you’re going to your cabin for the holidays, huh? Let me ask you this, then, dear Doctor.
If you cut down a tree and it falls, does it make a sound?
Your first instinct would be to regard me as some kind of fool for asking such an obvious question. Of course it would. In your version of the world, big things that falls make a sound, that’s basic Science to you. But what if I insist that it doesn’t? For I was not there to see the moment of impact, or to hear any sound. For, humour me, I was born and raised by parents who refused to accept the existence of anything I don’t see, including air, gravity, inflation, John Cena.
One of the peculiars in my profile, perhaps the only thing that is interesting or at least distinguishable, is the self-proclaimed title of a “postmodernist.” A long story very very short: I am a skeptic of the notion of Truth(s). I think Race, Gender, Religion, Science… as the white paint that doused our wool at birth, to limit our thoughts, and turn us against one another. And like the questioning nurse above, the only ideas I subscribe to, are my own.
I have always perceived Truth as problematic. The fact that you have to be respectful towards people who are older than you are, or which gender have to pay for the meal on a date… that those notions are considered Truth is problematic. How about Science? One of the dilemmas of science is that it does not create absolute truth. It only creates theories. The Earth was once the center of the universe, and blood-letting was once a legitimate medical procedure. The problem is that we act as if they are true, and never considering otherwise until the untruth is exposed.
Now that we get the introduction out of the way, since this is to me, quite a difficult things to write about: not only do I have to try to explain postmodernism, which is the equivalent of catching an eel with bare hands, I also have to give my opinions on Trump and mass media. Fearing I might go off course, my point with this essay is: Think before you trust and Trust only yourself.
One of the pillars of society is Law. Rules and regulations keep us in from acting like animals: it deters us from inflicting harm to (or kill) one another, or we will face punishment. Consider then, the judges that we entrust to lay down the Law. The group of people that we have the utmost confidence in their education, in their integrity, in their experience… to deliver decisions with objectivity. They are Justice. Or at least, they are supposed to be. Consider the highest of them all, the Supreme Court of the United States of America. How do you feel, then, when one of the judges of the highest court of Freedom Country has been receiving “donations” from Republican Harlan Crow? When the court made that decision to strike down Roe v. Wade (the landmark decision that constitutionalized abortion), were the conservative judges being objective? Or were they promised another yacht? And don’t just narrow your view on the buzzwords like abortion and Supreme Court and Bribing (did I say bribing?), fact of the matter is, the Law has constantly been shifted, exploited, abused by the rich and famous (this is merely one case, I am prepared to show more). If a pillar is that rotted, what good is there in having one?
The denial of truth has a particularly important consequence: the more you look and ask and inquire, the stronger society pushback. Mind I remind you the thing is not on solid ground, and to remain stable, it will snuff out the voices that question it. In order to claim Truth, then, depends on how deep your pockets go. Truth is merely collusion among the powerful to disguise their subjectivity and grant themselves free more power.
Donald Trump’s success can be attributed to how well he plays with Truth. Circa 1980s, Trump was the poster boy of Wall Street. Even when his business was failing, he appeared as the glamorous billionaire, the very icon of the American Dream. From then on, Trump would lie, and his supporters would believe, so much so that his version of a story becomes the story itself.
The first day of his presidency, Trump’s White House spokeperson Sean Spicer lied about how big the audience at the inauguration was. Although Spicer’s announcement quickly became fuel for the press, the Trump administration saw this as the first building block of their world. From then on, Trump and his allies would continue to deny everything about the aforementioned event, and it would soon become apparent that Trump’s ultimate goal was not solely to obfuscate the real, but rather to create his own Real. We have never given Trump enough credit for how well he understands the structure of this society and what makes it tick.
Half-truths and inkling of truths are all considered Truth, if you can convince people it is. Convince enough people, and your bullshit becomes Truth, and you, become Donald Trump. From the last paragraph, you can see I don’t like Trump one bit. Yet, I still am going to argue for him, for he remains a perfect example of “living in your own truth.” One thing I find myself agreeing with the reality-star-turned-president is his claims of Fake News. Thanks (in part) to the exposure of liberal news channel, Trump won the 2016 election. How? Instead of genuinely calling Trump out for his rampant lies, the media opted for what Jean Baudrillard, a cult figure within postmodernism, would call “a symbolic demand for truth” in his book, Forget Foucault. Here, Baudrillard describes a game that mass media and Trump is playing with the public: when reporters lunged at Trump’s “alternative facts” like hyenas, were they on their quest for Truth, or were they merely making money? Mass media is a web of lies and political ties, where the unsuspected readers/viewers got trapped with whatever bullcrap is trendy. Trump, as mentioned, was an old hand at this game, and as he weaved through the jabs and hooks, occasionally fire back with Twitter, he eventually came out victorious.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is Trump, and the six-eyed Spider will eat you. But since you’re blind, like everyone else, trust only what is in front of you. Who cares about what sound the tree makes?