How we are losing the fight for truth

With many political discussions, if we want the intellectual integrity to survive, we must be willing to admit that the challenge is not an attack, I’m Peterson.

We are in the war. Not in the Middle East, not in Eastern Europe. Not fighting bombs or boots – ideas. There is a war on intellectualism – and we lose badly.

The current war II. The most obvious thing is something we see every day: politicians, politicians who armed misinformation and disinformation to hide the truth. They plant confusion, fear and insecurity to any one and add everything that is not compatible with their beliefs or interests. This is conscious, disturbing, and perhaps the most devastating, incredibly effective.

Look at some languages adopted by the Trump administration.

Famous, only days after the US president Donald TrumpThe first opening caused by the White House press secretary Sean Spiceer to want “A proven lie”, Kellyanne Conway announced that it uses “Alternative facts”. I suspected an oximoron and checked the definition: Real (name): Something known or proven to be true. It was a way of handling a proven inaccuracy for days to administration.

President Trump at the 2018 congress announced:

“Just remember: what is what you see and read.”

This is striking quotation George Orwell’s 1984 is awakening:

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. This was their last, most important order.”

And only Donald Trump prevented his respect for the Federal Reserve Head this week Jerome Powell– stating:

“I was surprised that he was appointed … Frankly, I was surprised that Biden put him in and expand.”

Only Biden didn’t put him in; Powell was appointed under Trump in 2017 before he received his two-party support in 2021.

A little ironicly, the facts don’t matter-that “Mistruth” is nothing else on a almost vast list for the current administration. They come to the cruel nature they come from: constantly, without regret and apparently without worrying about the supporters of the administration.

It is parallel to the conditions that millions of Americans willingly adopted this, allowing fascism and nazism to develop about a century ago. Allow a short history lesson:

Joseph Stalin’s Soviet regime handled independent thought and truth as enemies to be crushed. In the 1930s, Stalin’s great terror, not only party officials and military officers, but also cleared the academics, writers and other intellectuals under the guise of unfaithful or “sabotage”. Usually these charges had no foundation, but it was applied in the same way. With these productions, the regime justified the elimination of everyone who dare to oppose the party line.

Despite some sharp ideological differences, the Nazi policy similarly directed its administration and intellectual classes. When Germany occupied Poland in 1939, private SS units ( Einsatzgruppen) The army followed the army’s intellectuals – doctors, lawyers, clergy, professors and other professionals – essentially everyone who can lead resistance or independent thought – followed by the order of eliminating.

As a historian Timothy Snyder Notes in his book Blood fields:

“Einsatzgruppen would fulfill their duties as ‘ideological soldiers’ by eliminating the educated classes of a defeated enemy.”

A particular wound stems from the intention of seduce the Poland society in both Moscow and Berlin as a beatingable mass that could be managed instead of being ruled.

Then quotes from Hitler:

“Only a nation whose upper levels are destroyed can be pushed to the ranks of slavery.”

Play any bell?

From alternative facts to tagging almost every media organization “Fake News”, The current administration seems to have been educated suspiciously about history. However, while the realization of intellectuals in the United States remains negative, the administration settles to erode future generations. The dismantling of the Ministry of Education, an agency that supports low -income families and disabled students. The attacks on higher education – the latest Harvard University – another.

One speech Titled “Universities Enemy” and National Conservation Conference On November 2, 20215, JD Vance Reported:

“If any of us want to do what we want to do for our country and the people living in it, we should attack the universities in this country in an honest and aggressive way.”

The propaganda machine and book burns of the Nazi regime are designed to suppress the right information and replace it with the Nazi ideology and are designed to enable the population to face narratives that serve only the Hitler regime.

Last year, more than 10,000 books were banned in US public schools, almost three times three times the previous year.

Pen America, a non -profit organization dedicated to freedom of expression, reported that about 8,000 books prohibited in Florida and Iowa, because both states implemented comprehensive laws aimed at class materials. If we really value freedom, is freedom of thought more important than freedom of expression? This is not to propose that it is easy to balance a curriculum, but it is a step towards authoritarianism to prohibit books.

And despite the weight of this attack, there is another front that we still fight. One is more evolutionary failure. As a genre we have made in the last decades, with incredibly technological gains, we have not realized not only information, but also on our perception. It is found everywhere and is common and is designed to give us exactly what we want: algorithm.

It embodies the erosion of free thinking, which is used in changing forms in all areas of the media. Algorithms designed for content creation and distribution are similar to cocaine. They try to overcome the natural cables in our brain and to create addicts all of us by providing us with unnatural satisfaction.

In the news, this is the headlines that are unrelated, but to convince a click. From where? Money: Capitalism demands this.

In social media applications, they ensure your attention, you continue to slide as long as possible. Everything is curated for you: you see, when you see, how long you see. Even the content you don’t like is potentially designed by AI, especially to feed your anger, to convince a response, and most importantly to keep you busy. It is designed to capture you and never let you go. Your name given to this phenomenon “Doom scroll”.

Like many other vars in life, we succumb to the ease of it – because frictionless. He doesn’t want anything from us. We know that it is not good for us in the long run, just as we know that we need to eat healthy. However, like chocolate compared to carrots, the emergency reward is more attractive, more satisfactory and more designed for pleasure.

The algorithm requires a echo room without prejudiced subconscious and without prejudice; Naturally, we are now feeding materials that support our established views. Opposite perspectives are often manufactured or disrupted by weaker arguments, which are often created for more division and cynicism, both ideological left and right. The success of the algorithm is reflected through the mainstream media channels that have undergone a similar distillation in the quest for infinite growth, one or two types of fists.

Now we have a new limit with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Only years ago, he fell into a little realistic paintings, the growth of artificial intelligence skills was so fast that we can now create indistinguishable videos from real life in a visual and audible way. Only this week, in a case, it was incredible if it wasn’t just for recent history, US President Obama released a AI video in which he was arrested in Oval Office. This is from the same president who signed an invoice that only accused a invoice month ago. ‘Digital fraud “of an” intimate visual depiction “or a identifiable individual.

With the informal social media that meets both official journalism and artificial content, bilaterality and intellectual reconciliation are more rare than ever. During the last century, Stalin, Hitler, and many other autocrats were based on propaganda, forced narratives and opposing voices to create a population that will willingly reject the objective truth. Today we do this to ourselves.

So we’re in war and we’re losing. How do we turn the tide?

First, systematically opposing each of these forces. Our politicians must have more on accountability. We should not accept a different reasoning or obvious mistakes – and the media should not be. I do not attempt to conceal my political tendencies, but do yourself a favor: Follow President Obama to receive screenwriter questions from Republican members at the 2010 GOP House Problems Conference. Love or hate him, the fact that only one president stands in a room of ideological rivals and directly participates in civilian debates, he feels almost unimaginable only 15 years later. Both parties should respect and demand it.

In cases where a Lunatic once could only be a milk carton in a street corner, technology now offers them a megaphone to the world. We must also have independent journalism, which is far from political coercion, at the same time without teeth. Demand more than media resources that will not attain politicians.

Second, choose optimism on cynicism. Suppose rival ideas come from the place of hope or experience, not evil or manipulation. Even if there are defects in the presentation, consider whether the argument has a value.

And remember the algorithm: it is designed to be too busy and many comments and perspectives are not real. And when we interact with social, political or ideological perspectives, we must resist the reflex to interpret them in their most cynical lights.

Get existing debates surrounding gender and identity. Retory’s “side” You ask yourself and ask yourself: Does this perspective suppress the debate or does it invite it? Do you want empathy or indifference? Is he looking for unity or looking for a compartment? We do not earn anything by approaching every problem with the lens of suspicion. But in the same way, do not assume evil against ignorance. Although there is no reward when it exists, otherwise we pay a lot of payment when we alienate those who can grow, and we are still ignorant in many ways.

Finally, for everyone – to expand both sides of the political range – we must be willing to admit that the square is not an attack; This is a necessity. Christopher Hitchens thought about his words from Socrates when he was confronted with his own deaths and sentenced to death. “Road youth” (Providing different philosophical perspectives from traditional Athens values):

He said:

“… Well, if we’re lucky, maybe I will be able to chat with other big thinkers, philosophers and doubts”.

In other words, discussions about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is right can always continue. Why is this important, why do I want to do this? Because this is the only conversation worth having.

If we want the intellectual integrity to survive, we must apply it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsreedqgfc8

Ben Peterson is a small business owner and a graduate of UOM (Trade and Art, Political Science Major).

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