The catchy title of this post, “Truth Decay,”— an obvious pun on “tooth decay”— is not new. As a cursory search of the
phrase indicates, it has been in use for a good long while.
Tracing it back to 1974, a book entitled “Truth Decay” refers
to the dangers of fluoridation in our water supply. Fluoridation and Truth Decay, Gladys
Caldwell (1974). Since then, a number of titles use the phrase “Truth Decay” in
referring to various, eyebrow-raising aspects revolving around dentistry or dental
issues:
·
Toxic Bite: An Investigation into Truth
Decay, Bill Kellner-Read (2002)
·
Truth Decay: How Mainstream Dentists Are
Lying Through Their Teeth!, Robert and Kerrie Broe (2002)
·
Truth Decay: How Government Corruption
Caused a Political Scandal Victimizing Texas Dentists and How It Could Happen
to You!, Juan D. Villarreal (2017)
The phrase, “Truth Decay,” has also
been a popular expression among those of the Christian publishing genre:
·
Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against
the Challenges of Postmodernism, Douglas Groothius (2000)
·
Truth Decay, Vol.1, Frank Savoy (2 Ed.,
2014); Truth Decay, Vol. 2: St. Patrick and the Culdees (2015)
·
Fighting Truth Decay: The Message of Jude
(Truth for Today, 3), Sam Gordon (2002)
·
Preventing Truth Decay, Barry Shafer (1998)
Similarly,
the phrase is used in reference to a socio-cultural phenomenon:
·
Truth Decay: The Erosion of Traditional
Values in American Culture, Steve Hale (2011)
It has
even proposed as the title of a CD:
·
Truth
Decay—progressive jazz by Adam Holzman and his band (release date: March 30, 2018)
Most recently, on C-SPAN radio I
heard a researcher from the Rand Corporation use “Truth Decay” as a way to
characterize and critique “fake news,” viz., Truth
Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in
American Public Life (2018). The study is authored by Jennifer Kavanagh and Michael D. Rich. It may
be worth quoting at length (what is essentially) the abstract of the study:
Over the past two decades, national political and civil discourse in the
United States has been characterized by "Truth Decay," defined as a
set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and
analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between
opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence,
of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly
respected sources of factual information. These trends have many causes, but
this report focuses on four: characteristics of human cognitive processing,
such as cognitive bias; changes in the information system, including social
media and the 24-hour news cycle; competing demands on the education system
that diminish time spent on media literacy and critical thinking; and
polarization, both political and demographic. The most damaging consequences of
Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis,
alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic
institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.
This report explores the causes and consequences of Truth Decay and how
they are interrelated, and examines past eras of U.S. history to identify
evidence of Truth Decay's four trends and observe similarities with and
differences from the current period. It also outlines a research agenda, a
strategy for investigating the causes of Truth Decay and determining what can
be done to address its causes and consequences.
That sounds terrific. But is it?
Could this be a ploy to neutralize the catchy phrase, "Truth Decay," by co-opting/subverting and re-assimilating it as an inverted mainstream idiom?
The first thing I wondered about is whether the researchers took into account a
few things that conspiracy analysts would immediately ask themselves. Do they
factor in the existence, infiltration by, and covert operations of various not-so-secret
societies? These include:
·
the Vatican, the Jesuits, and associated, upper echelon “Knights" and Orders
·
the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” viz., the Judaic
cabal identifying as "Jews"?
·
The Freemasons, Illuminati, Templars,
neo-fascist mafias, et al.
·
the Marxists/Communists/Socialists, including
the Democrat Party and the mainstream media and their surrogates on the web
·
rogue intelligence operatives (government,
private, corporate, military—including government actors and contractors whose cyber and non-cyber actions are enabled via the “Patriot Act”)
·
oligarch-funded propaganda machines (e.g., George
Soros organelles, think-tanks, NGOs, foundations and non-profits)
In fact, the list of players above
presents an intertwined amalgam of the so-called Shadow Government (Senior
Executive Service, et al.), the Deep State (the “corpocracy”), and the mostly
unseen/unknown, Luciferian funder-handler-controllers. If we consider the
existence and ongoing, inter-generational “Truth Decay” perpetrated by these
dark forces since the days of Babylon, then we begin to comprehend the deep-rooted
causes of the malaise of the common folk today.
And so, before I read this “non-partisan”
Report by the (already suspect) Rand Corporation, I want to know whether this
is the sort of mental-rational trance dance, intellectually articulated white-wash
nonsense that may sound terrific but is instead more of the same, seemingly-incisive-but-really-only-a-survey-of-symptoms
of our sick society.
Before I clutter my mind with the
facts and figures oh-so-neatly collected, collated, and presented by these researchers
with advanced degrees, that same inquiring mind wants to know why my teeth
suddenly ache—why my internal anti-Christian radar alert mechanism has gone
off—why I fear that I will be inundated by more evidence of Orwellian traditional-values-erosion—and
how “Truth Decay” becomes a meme in the entertainment industry that only
desensitizes us to truth and its meaninglessness in this, our insaniac 21st
Century.
No comments:
Post a Comment