Post-truth

Post-truth

I've finished wishing all my friends a happy Christmas by post and email and also wishing them the best for the new year. In the latter lies the rub. Most of the messages I have received in return indicate trepidation for the year ahead and I feel a compulsion to play Nostradamus or Old Moore and attempt an Almanack.

What intrigues me most is where a current post-truth society might lead. Leaving aside 1984 and Brave New World (we don't yet have a Ministry of Post-truth) and Alice's Wonderland, what we are left with is a kind of modern Middle Ages, although truth was sought after even then. Ways of seeking it were sometimes bizarre and extreme, via soothsayers and torture, but it was sought after and generally suppressed only when it conflicted with religion. Religion, as then, is once again a powerful force and rising as a force for destruction. The west hasn't experienced religious wars since the Middle Ages but militant Islam has that at it's core and seems bent on engaging in Europe. Fundamentalism and intolerance are rife. We aren't yet burning witches at the stake but treason is back in fashion as an accusation, in the UK at least. The west's crusades in the Middle East have played no small part in creating this situation. Are we really in for another period of the Dark Ages? Because, if so, war is more than just a possibility and conceivably in a manner and on a scale never seen before.

Dark as all this seems I remain an optimist at heart. If we can't yet have a sane 21st century maybe we can have a repeat of the 18^th. Going back three centuries would certainly be preferable to going back seven or more, could even be regarded as progress now. Trump may have appointed previously discredited alchemists as his scientific advisers but reason and enlightenment may yet prevail. That, at any rate, is my fervent wish for my friends in 2017. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said a long time ago that stupidity is more dangerous than evil because evil raises doubts in people's minds and you can reason with that but not with stupidity (or blind prejudice, my addition). Someone also said that the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits; stupidity does not. Let us hope that the spirit of the 18^th century prevails in 2017. I think, and fervently hope, that will be the case. The alternative does not bear contemplation.

The Media And Christmas

The Media: An Internet Opportunity?

Special-interest commercial intrusion on political affairs, and thereby the basis of democracy, is everywhere very apparent. To counter this, I've seen proposals for government control of expenditure on political party promotion and the like, especially as elections near, but nothing that strikes me as remotely practical. That in itself doesn't concern me. What does is how an individual can be enabled to form a reasoned opinion on the basis of good information when virtually all media are subjected to commercial pressure.

When I was young The Times was pointed out to me as a source of uncommented reporting, neutral information in that sense. It would print what was said/written elsewhere verbatim, separating that explicitly from any comment. Nowadays all the press has to be regarded simply as an arm of the commercial and personal (press barons') PR industry. True, exactly what has been said in the UK parliament can be discovered via Hansard but I know of no other verbatim sources, giving both what has been said/written and the context.

All this leads me to wonder whether there exists an opportunity for some community-spirited internet entrepreneur. In another life I would have loved to take this up but the means and capabilities are now well beyond me. However the internet has shown the power of public-spirited people collectively in the form of free and publicly available excellent software which manages to sustain itself economically. Could a site offering verbatim news do the same? If such a site were available it would render an incalculably important service to democracy, all the more so in a post-truth world.

Praise For The Irrational

Somewhat in spite of the forgoing I believe that the irrational can play an important role in people's lives. Like many others no doubt I have an irrational/ unconditional love for my children. I have just learned that, all being well, I should become a grandfather next year and my love for that child as yet unknown will be similarly unconditional and irrational. And so, I believe, it should be. This need for the irrational has been with me all my life. Having spent virtually all of my working life in a field that requires, at the technical level, extreme logical rigour, I felt this need even before having children. The focus of it has been, and still is, the football club I support, Chelsea. The team is doing well at the moment but I have always known with absolute certainty, however the team was doing, that if it lost a match the only possible explanation was that the referee had been paid off or that the Fates had somehow conspired to produce this otherwise inexplicable eventuality.

Christmas

Christmas is coming, which always evokes for me memories of the 1960's cynical song by Tom Lehrer. But it's not really like that. Before I had kids Christmas was always something of an epicurean event for me: food, wine, friends and family. From the time I had kids, Christmas was all about the kids, their excitement, their reactions and enjoyment until they outgrew it. Since then it has been rather low-key, an excuse to spend a bit more than usual on food and wine and, hopefully, a day or two socialising with good friends. So it will be this year. There is little difference between being in France or England other than the that the French don't do Christmas cards, which means acquiring them from England one way or another for those of my friends and family who don't have the internet or to whom I want to send a card anyway. It should be an enjoyable time but, I find, for maximum enjoyment kids are necessary. Christmas has never had religious connotations for me; it's my pagan mid-winter festival.

Despite that I'll be singing carols as usual, at the local retirement home and outside the Bar du Pont, for all those brave enough to listen, with all the musical expertise I gathered on the terraces of Chelsea football club abusing the referee and opposing teams. Happily there are other members of the “choir” who have a greater ability with music (what's the word for that: does musicacy exist? if not, it should). As I've noted in previous years, carol singing is not a tradition in this part of France but one introduced recently by English and ex-Alsatian residents here. And the villagers have taken to it, especially as the Bar du Pont makes and serves mulled wine for the event. And kids galore come to join in.