In a recent read of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, I was moved as I’m sure all readers are by
the novel’s chief theme: that reason is the greatest of all human qualities.
Reason as opposed to force. Intelligence over might. And even in his own 1940s
as he wrote about a Norman Conquest of another timeline, he was worried about
its loss, about the war—figurative and literal—that was being fought against
reason by might in his own days.
Were
he alive today. The war against reason is full-fledged again and it looks like
the brutes have got the brains on the run. Not even specific to Donald Trump,
in the past few weeks I’ve heard political correctness demonised for its
stifling of free speech, the traditional media decried for inciting opposition
to opinions that would like to be held freely without justification, and
various other no-longer-even-thinly-veiled statements of sexism, racism,
climate change denial, obtuse views that exist and so are true. People have
become of the opinion that having an opinion automatically validates that
opinion. Sorry?
It’s a
war against reason, Mr White.
Recently, my own Member of
Alberta's Legislative Assembly penned a rambling opinion piece in our local
newspapers in which he was very careful to say that he was not (exactly)
endorsing Trump, but it’s the fault of an enemy he attacks with alarming
fervour—the vague “leftists”—because the new president-elect is the product of
a backlash to political correctness. The American voter lashed out against PC
because it prevented politicians like Trump (I know, just go with it) from
speaking their minds, from adhering to that holiest of mantras: Telling It Like
It Is.
Pause for a second. This is an
elected official (I didn’t vote for him but whatchagonnado?) saying that the
problem for him is having to choose his words carefully, to not offend, to not
be blunt or crude or sexist or racist or stupid intentionally or accidentally. Geez, man, get outta
public life if that’s how you feel.
Any stupid ignorance bubble
does not need to gain flight, and my MLA and his ilk insist that not only
should it be allowed to rise aloft, but it should do so without being held to
the rigours of decent language. People need to be able to tell it like it is
where IT is equal to whatever non-censored rant they feel is justified. It
needs to be able to spurt and fly without a second’s consideration for
potential offenses in it or potential un-truths.
It’s a battle against
decent—or even moderately intelligent—language in the war against reason.
Preserving the right to offend
is just the sort of policy you would expect to see from people and politicians
who only have enough of a grasp on ideas to see anyone who doesn’t agree with
them as enemies. Apparently T.I.L.I.I. results in a closed mind, in creating camps,
battle lines, platoons of the ignorant, battalions of blowhards.
And if they’re not busy
telling us how angry they are at not being able to say what they want with the
when and how disregarded, they’re grumbling about journalists making their
stories under the rigours of language that is correct, both grammatically and
politically. Hearing someone’s opinion on traditional media has suddenly become
as polarizing as the same on abortion or transgender bathroom choices. The
“liberal media” has long been vilified by the Newt Gingriches, Stephen Harpers,
Brad Walls, and Fox News producers of the world because that so-called media
with it’s so-called bias doesn’t present IT
like IT is, as in with the
plaintiff’s desired spin put on it. No bias there, though. Of course, they rage
this way while ignoring the same claims made over time by the Pierre Trudeaus,
Bill Clintons, and Paul Martins out there.
This trend—again championed by
the US president-elect—is to approach journalism with all of its trained
reporters, vetted stories, multi-sided opinions, as completely flawed with
completely awful intent in order to completely discredit politicians (I know,
maybe it’ll grow on us) like him. People like Trump hate how the media presents
them, though blame is far easier to make in this world beyond reason than a
person asking himself how he is presenting himself to the world. But I don’t want to over-stress it.
Trump—like my unfortunate MLA—hates the media because
he can’t control it. Frankly, he won the election because of the war on reason.
He’s a major victory for the forces of ignorance. People believed his
post-truths (first try: did I use it correctly?) on Twitter, his “by-the-way”
outright lies, and they loaded Facebook and blogs and any other (anti-)social
medium they could with tripe. If my understanding of the Oxford English
Dictionary’s new darling is correct, all you have to do is yell stupidity
louder and more frequently and no number of facts can disprove you. The media
(or anyone with better than a Grade 4 education and the ability to consult more
than one news app) can’t contradict you.
It’s stupid. Literally, not
colloquially. Stupid reigns. Again. The end of reason didn’t come in White’s
own time, but the legacy of the Goebbles of that era just needed a few more
decades to take firmly.
