What is truth? The definition states truth is an actual state of matter, conformity with fact or reality; a verified or undisputed fact, proposition, principle; and an ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience ("Truth," 2010). Can people identify the truth? Or do they make up their versions of the truth? Farhad Manjoo proves the latter in his book True Enough.
Manjoo discusses how media fragmentation, which is broadening the media landscape from corporate conglomerates to include niche market players, has allowed information to be spun by millions often times bastardizing truth into snippets of opinions and biased commentary. It is easy for people to gravitate to political pundits like Bill O’Reilly or my personal favorite Rachel Maddow, when seeking strong consonant information that agrees with our points of view that are easily proven, in our minds.
Watch this seven-minute clip from Rachel Maddow's show on Bill O'Reilly to get a feel of the cognitive dissonance.
One of the problems is that each side, in this case Republican verses Democrat commentators, has its own set of facts and distributes information from a slanted perspective espousing truths of things that are merely opinions. Language choices like accusing all “Muslims” of being terrorists, with reference to 9/11, got O’Reilly into some trouble this week on the TV show The View. Barbara Walters was able to get him to rephrase “all Muslims” for “extremist Muslims”. The problem is the people in O’Reilly’s camp probably have already inherited his prejudices and will go around espousing the untruths for truths. Manjoo (2008) states, “People have generalized their preferences for politically consonant news…they’ve gotten into the habit of saying, ‘whatever the news is talking about, I’m just going to turn to Fox’” (p. 19). By subscribing to one politically-driven machine’s news, a person can get really off track. This was seen recently with the Shirley Sherrod case eventually leading to some apologies on the network for espousing inaccurate claims.
Another problem is that people have accepted beliefs over facts. The Swift Boat Veteran’s for Truth group was able to take down John Kerry in the 2004 election over unsupported claims that he was an unpatriotic Veteran and did horrible things in war. The group used the niche markets, and word-of-mouth and viral marketing to get the word out and take Kerry down. It worked! Why did people believe the information even though evidence supported the contrary?
It is interesting how reality can shift from one news source to the next, one blog to the next, or in the press on a daily basis. What is truth? Manjoo explored the cognitive basis of truthiness. I agree with him that now-a-days people construct their own realities regardless of actual states of matter or fundamental principles, as in science. If I say, “The sky is blue,” someone else is likely to say, “No it isn’t.”
References:
Manjoo, F. (2008). True enough . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Truth. (2010). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/truth
YouTube. (2010). Rachel Maddow to Bill O'Reilly: sticks and stones can break my bones but facts will never hurt me . Retrieved from http://el Maddow To Bill O'Reilly: Sticks And Stones Can Break My Bones But Facts Will Never Hurt Me
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