The Importance Of Dubito

The Importance Of Dubito (I Doubt)

Everyone, at least everyone who's been through a sixth-form school programme, knows or should know the French philosopher Descartes' famous proposition “I think therefore I am” (“cogito ergo sum” if you are OK with the Latin). In fact that is not logically complete as a proposition, but never mind that; what is important is that it is not the entirety of what Descartes said. His full proposition was “dubito ergo cogito ergo sum”, “I doubt therefore I think therefore I am”. What's so important? That the first step is to doubt, question.

Why is this relevant now? Because, like it or not, we Brits are engaged now, and will be for some months at least ahead of us, in a propaganda war about Brexit. What is acknowledged as the first casualty in any war, particularly a propaganda one? The truth. So what should we do? We need our “dubito”; whatever we think we read, hear, see, from any source, we need to doubt, to question it. Sorry about that but we are going to have to think, and think hard, for ourselves.

The point occurred to me because I came across a story in one of the tabloids about a Romanian refugee family in London, beggars all, living under some road bridge and swigging vodka (vodka ice, to be precise). The established facts are that the peasant family came to England expecting a land of milk and honey, found that was very far from the case and want to go back but can't afford the fare. So what's the newspaper story? The story offered is that here's a family of Romanian immigrants, in London because of the EU open borders policy, making a living through begging and doing well enough to be able to afford vodka (ice); i.e. not just managing to feed their kids and get by on crusts of bread. The story struck me because I immediately thought of an alternative version.

I've no idea whether this is true but it fits the known facts equally well. The Editor of a tabloid with an agenda of immigrant bashing needs another headline story. The existence of the Romanian family under the road bridge has already been reported and is known. So he says to one of his reporters: “Go find this family, buy a bottle of vodka (ice), and give it to them. You can say 'Welcome to England' or whatever to explain the gift. Get them drinking it and take a photo and, bingo, I've got my headline story.”

As I've said, I've no idea whether this is the true story but it could as well be as the published story. So what do we conclude? We can only conclude, if we are thinking straight, that we don't really know. We don't know the truth because that's not what the newspaper considers relevant here; as I've said, that's the first casualty in our propaganda war. That's not very helpful but it does suggest a way forward. The first thing to ask in this propaganda war is what is the political agenda of the newspaper, TV station or whatever reporting the story. Because you can bet there is a slant on it, maybe even a total fabrication, and the slant will be in favour of their political agenda. Allow for that and ask yourself what facts, if any, can be established and what other possible explanations/interpretations of the story there could be. That's all you can do but, above all, do not simply accept what you read or hear as fact from any source without questioning it.

Remember……..dubito, dubito, dubito. And THINK.