Joey broke the Window, Mom

WARNING: This post may contain misinformation, repetition of lies that were mistakenly believed by the writer, and assertions that reflect the writer’s biases. It may also leave out what should be said because prejudices of the writer have inserted themselves. It’s that kind of a world.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. - John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn)

Psalm 52:2-4 (NIV)

You who practice deceit,
your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor.
You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
You love every harmful word,
you deceitful tongue!

Does it begin when we’re children, defending ourselves with disinformation about someone else? Do we set out early on the road of equating falsehood with truth if doing so benefits us? And if we assert vehemently that “Joey broke the window,” and our mother says, “I believe you, honey” and gives us a hug, is our relationship with truth forever bent by the conviction that whatever works?”

We are being bombarded with stories these days of men behaving badly, sexually, toward women who may not speak out because their hopes for career advancement or their fear of reprisal silences them. In every such instance there exists a factual narrative and one that’s invented; it’s too easy for us to pick out the preferred one and declare it to be the truth. We know that heterosexual men with power and money can come to assume that—since they are able to access the best food, lodging, clothing, wherever and whenever they wish—they are logically entitled to the best and easiest access to sexual gratification. Take Bill Cosby, for instance.

We also know that the scenario of sexual abuse can be used as an act of revenge to bring down an honourable person. Outside of the most blatant cases, it always comes down to “he said, she said.”

If you’re following the news, you know that a man by the name of Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, was beaten to death by prison guards in a jail in Russia. He was the Russian lawyer for am investment broker—Bill Browder—working out of London. You can read about the events leading up to Magnitsky’s arrest and killing in Red Notice: A true story of high finance, murder, and one man’s fight for justice by Bill Browder. In his book, Browder paints a picture of the Russian government’s misinformation, false witness and outright lying and theft in support of the privileged oligarchs at the top of Russian economy. Red Notice was a New York Times bestseller for a time, so many are reading it. I have to wonder, though, if they’re taking into account that Browder, writing about himself and his problems with Russia, is undoubtedly writing out of self-interest and that that itself should raise some skepticism. Is Red Notice also a compendium of misinformation?

Christians face a challenge. Living in this world of instant information and misinformation, we are as prone as anyone to adopt this or that narrative as being the likeliest truth . . . and acting on that judgment. Support for a lying, abusive, narcissistic president in the USA is strong among people who call themselves Christian, a phenomenon that has to make genuinely-discipled Christians shudder. Because it’s a basic tenet of Christian faith that there can be no justice, no integrity except where truth is respected . . . or sacred? The commitment to love as Jesus loved and to speak truth as Jesus spoke it go hand in hand . . . and these are not relative values; they’re basic, fundamental, and essential.

Separating information and misinformation is a challenge; teaching our children and youth to approach what they hear with some skills in logic, in detecting  personal or institutional bias, in withholding judgment when the picture is incomplete, this has to be where at least part of the solution lies. When Donald Trump says the news media publish “fake news,” he may be very close to the truth . . . for the wrong reasons. A good start on being better at weighing the trustworthiness of what is reported can be had by clicking here and reading ALL of an article in The Guardian by Rolf Dobelli, who maintains that the news as it’s reported and read in newspapers and listened to on TV and radio these days, does us far more harm than good!