GUEST COMMENTARY ON “ALTERNATIVE FACTS”

Kellyanne Conway’s defense of Trump Press Secretary Sean Spencer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of the president-elect’s inauguration, by referring to the falsehood as “alternative facts,” ushered a new term (though not the practice) into our political vernacular. While not the first to practice mendacity, the Trump administration has taken the disregard for facts and contempt for truth to a new level. We shouldn’t be surprised. Donald Trump told us about his affection for the Orwellian practice in his book Trump: the Art of the Deal.

An indifference to truth has now pervaded our political culture. People believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts. Political debate falls largely along partisan lines and is usually conducted at the level of emotion disconnected from facts. Factual rebuttals of false claims are ignored. Welcome to America’s post-truth political world.

Professor Buzz Fozouni, a former colleague of mine in the Political Science Department at California State University Sacramento, offers his observations about America's post-truth problem.

“Alternative Facts”

I could never imagine that in the second decade of 21^st century the American media and cyberspace would be abuzz with the notion of “alternative facts.” Today, we are witness to attempts at turning the world inside out—truth is being rejected as false; falsehood is being exalted as the truth. There is no such thing as an “alternative fact.” The alternative to facts is bullshit.  Facts are based on evidence; bullshit is not. Bullshit is fabricated with complete disregard for evidence. Its purpose is to manipulate people by distracting their attention away from facts to a claim bereft of any evidentiary credential. The aim behind the dissemination of bullshit is to sow doubts and uncertainties about facts. Bullshit is not necessarily false; it may or may not be, depending on the evidence. Absent evidence, what remains is simply bullshit.

While there are no “alternative facts,” there are alternative explanations of facts on which reasonable people (which excludes Trump & company) may disagree. On the other hand, the purpose of bullshit is to manipulate, confuse and persuade by making claims that closely mimic a factual statement. In so doing, bullshit usually possesses all the attributes of facts, save for one: evidence.

Those who insist “alternative facts” are legitimate, do so in order to delegitimize the facts. And once you have delegitimized the facts, you have also delegitimized political discourse and politics. Anything goes! Today, alternative facts are invoked to debunk any explanation of an accepted fact that does not sit well with the bullshitter’s agenda. Instead of coming up with an alternative explanation of the facts, the purveyor of bullshit,  like magicians, reach into their bag of deceit to pull out “alternative facts”  and jettison into the dustbin the known facts and the explanations behind them. The more the media obsesses over the shock of “alternative facts,” the more they, wittingly or not, help to delegitimate the facts.

This nonsense of alternative facts reminds me of the 1960s and 70s debates in academia about relativism.  In its most common form, relativism maintained that everything, including facts, is subjective; there are no acceptable standards by which one can objectively believe in anything as fact (truth). Here Larry Laudan’s timeless response to such thoughts is worth quoting:

“The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is – second only to American political campaigns – the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.”

In a manner after Laudan, alternative facts or bullshit, courtesy of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, are among the most pernicious attacks on the legitimacy of evidence-based political discourse, let alone everyday facts! Pity those who ought to know better but beguilingly surrender reason to bullshit.

Buzz Fozouni