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What to Believe When You Can’t Believe Your Eyes and Ears
Be aware of confirmation bias in a social media spin cycle of dirty laundry
It is Friday morning, January 17, 2020. I am in my basement office in Virginia, pulling together the best I can many pieces of a tattered story that, if properly stitched together, might reveal a semi-autobiographical tale of a nation in peril. I cannot tell from the pieces I’ve grasped so far if the final story will be one of a heroic victory over scurrilous dark forces, or a tragic tale of immeasurable loss, the demise of hope and the death of innocence.
The debris of the ship of state
For the past too many weeks I’ve been watching, and reading about, the saga that is the impeachment of the President of the United States. I purposefully immersed myself in the restless, polluted ocean of the media, atop which floats the stained, rotting, barnacle-coated flotsam and jetsam of the wrecked political state. All around me I see alleged facts, pure fiction, lies, hearsay, innuendo, denials, bullying, brashness, shameless pandering, baseless assertions, finger-pointing, bus wheels, self-righteousness, misdirection, dark and insane plots, soulless pronouncements, shredded morals, discarded ethics, ennui, hubris, character assassination, racism, sexism…
