{"id":1966344,"date":"2023-07-07T06:35:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T10:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/misinformation-is-the-vocabulary-of-a-culture-that-has-lost-its-capacity-to-discuss-truth\/"},"modified":"2023-07-07T06:37:53","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T10:37:53","slug":"misinformation-is-the-vocabulary-of-a-culture-that-has-lost-its-capacity-to-discuss-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/misinformation-is-the-vocabulary-of-a-culture-that-has-lost-its-capacity-to-discuss-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Misinformation&#8217; is the language of a truth-deprived culture."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmisinformation-is-the-vocabulary-of-a-culture-that-has-lost-its-capacity-to-discuss-truth%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1966344&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-halts-biden-vaccine-mandate-for-federal-contractors\/\" title=\"Judge Halts Biden Vaccine Mandate For Federal Contractors\">preliminary injunction issued<\/a> against the White House and federal agencies on Tuesday in <em>Missouri v. Biden<\/em>, Judge Terry Doughty eviscerated government actors for colluding with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ga-poll-watcher-it-expert-non-trump-supporter-affidavit-sudden-surge-of-20000-mail-in-votes-for-biden-in-early-hours-on-nov\/\" title=\"GA Poll Watcher, IT Expert, Non-Trump Supporter Affidavit: Sudden Surge of 20,000 Mail-In-Votes For Biden In Early Hours On Nov\">social media companies<\/a> to censor users\u2019 protected speech in the name of eliminating \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doughty, as others have done, <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23867004\/08917380420.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">compares<\/a> the government censorship to Orwell\u2019s hypothetical \u201cMinistry of Truth.\u201d But Orwell\u2019s satirical title gives the speech police too much credit: It assumes \u201ctruth\u201d is still a functional part of their vocabulary. No, our censors speak in terms of \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-213312910\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-ffb04d9381df5535030fc0c750018ab7 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-ffb04d9381df5535030fc0c750018ab7\"><\/div>\n<p>The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information. Truth has a moral component; information doesn\u2019t. Years of moral relativism have eroded our cultural understanding of \u201ctruth\u201d as a knowable, agreed-upon concept \u2014 and in our modern world, all we\u2019re left with is an infinite supply of information.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Truth, Discerned in Nature by Reason<\/h2>\n<p>For most of Western history, philosophers and laymen alike have agreed upon the existence of \u201ctruth,\u201d as a factual concept but also as a moral one. <\/p>\n<p>Plato said the \u201ctrue philosophers\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/1497\/1497-h\/1497-h.htm#link2H_4_0002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">were<\/a> those \u201cwho are lovers of the vision of truth,\u201d which he described in terms of an ideal reality that transcended the imperfect reflections of truth, goodness, and beauty in the natural world. Similarly, Cicero believed in the existence of a natural law that could be understood via man\u2019s reason.<\/p>\n<p>Christianity describes the law being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/verses\/Rom%202%3A15%E2%80%9316\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">written on the hearts of men<\/a> in similar terms, and presents the good, true, and beautiful as originating from and perfectly fulfilled in the triune God. The Bible refers to Christ as the <em>Logos<\/em>, the Word of God \u2014 a term closely associated with wisdom, reason, and truth. Elsewhere, Christ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/verses\/John%2014%3A6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">describes<\/a> himself as \u201cthe way, and the truth, and the life.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2245a91eb8d89dd6da6e32a97ad5a6ca fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2245a91eb8d89dd6da6e32a97ad5a6ca\"><\/div>\n<p>As Christianity and Greek thought spread throughout the West, an emphasis on the comprehension of truth via reason took root. Presuppositions about rational thought and laws of nature spawned mathematic, scientific, and artistic advancements, most famously during the Renaissance. <\/p>\n<p>A few centuries later, Enlightenment thinkers began to break away from the theistic grounding of the Western pursuit of truth, elevating reason alone as a sufficient basis for a functioning society. Modernism rejected the Enlightenment obsession with reason, as the booming industrial world sought to overcome nature and its laws and limits. As religious foundations continued to crumble, relativism emerged and completely unmoored itself from traditional assumptions about objective and knowable truth.<\/p>\n<p>Today, we see factual relativism as well as moral. Not only does our prevailing social ethic tolerate individuals\u2019 self-determination of \u201cwhat\u2019s right for me,\u201d we\u2019ve gone so far as to nod along when a man says he is actually a woman, lacking the philosophical footing to explain why that simply can\u2019t be true.<\/p>\n<p>To \u201cspeak your truth,\u201d as distinct from <em>the<\/em> truth, is a moral victory to be praised according to our prevalent irrational dogma. Our cultural rejection of reason is evident in every field: Look at the deconstructionist sculptures and poetry that pass for art, or the assault on the fixed, rational rules of mathematics.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1a4365c6b5b42a20429d18290d8deabc fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1a4365c6b5b42a20429d18290d8deabc\"><\/div>\n<p>In this cultural condition, people are no longer equipped to speak in terms of truth, grounded in the divinely appointed laws of nature, discernible by human reason. Those concepts aren\u2019t in our contemporary vocabulary.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Truth Isn\u2019t Fragile, But Regime-Approved Narratives Are <\/h2>\n<p>In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Doughty explains: \u201cIt is the purpose of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of the market, whether it be by government itself or private licensee.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The essential context and goal of meaningful free speech \u2014 a world in which ideas are debated openly so that truth may triumph \u2014 is no longer feasible when ideas cease to be judged on their merits and are instead judged by the intensity with which a person feels them to be true.<\/p>\n<p>When there is no longer an agreed-upon concept of \u201ctruth,\u201d ideas are reduced to those with which you agree and those you don\u2019t. When you can\u2019t rely on your ideas to endure simply because they\u2019re true, contradictory perspectives and ideas become more of a threat.<\/p>\n<p>Enter the pervasive concept of \u201cmisinformation.\u201d It\u2019s not a new term \u2014 Noah Webster <a href=\"https:\/\/webstersdictionary1828.com\/Dictionary\/misinformation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">defined<\/a> it in 1828 as \u201cfalse account or intelligence received.\u201d The very idea of \u201cmisinformation\u201d as it was understood in Webster\u2019s time was basically a photonegative of truth: One could be misinformed, but the \u201cfalse account\u201d could be understood to be false precisely because it contradicted something true.<\/p>\n<p>But in a post-rational world, \u201cmisinformation\u201d means something else. One of the government bureaucrats accused in <em>Missouri v. Biden<\/em> of working to censor Americans admitted as much, in a very un-self-aware statement: \u201cCISA Director Easterly stated: \u2018We live in a world where people talk about alternative facts, post-truth, which I think is really, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts,&#8217;\u201d according to Doughty.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if everyone is picking his own facts, the government doing so is no different. As Doughty concluded, \u201cThe Free Speech Clause was enacted to prohibit just what Director Easterly is wanting to do: allow the government to pick what is true and what is false.\u201d If there is no ultimate truth, then all that\u2019s left is the prevailing narrative and information that challenges that narrative: misinformation. Government censors can make an appeal to reported facts or scientific studies, but man is ultimately fallible and those conclusions have no grounding if they are rooted in no higher law than the men who derive them.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because truth is inseparable from goodness. It\u2019s more than sterile informational accuracy \u2014 to be true is to reflect the created order that is ultimately good because its Creator is goodness Himself. <\/p>\n<p>Man possesses the knowledge of good and evil, and it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esv.org\/Genesis+3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cost him dearly<\/a>. Until we admit the language of goodness \u2014 and its opposite \u2014 back into our cultural vocabulary, we\u2019ll be vainly squabbling over \u201cmisinformation,\u201d and the most powerful actors will get to define it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3411b2c36ff91140f9916ddb30f3466d fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3411b2c36ff91140f9916ddb30f3466d\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Missouri v. Biden, Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction against the White House and federal agencies. He criticized their collaboration with social media companies to censor users&#8217; speech under the guise of combating &#8220;misinformation.&#8221; Doughty, like others, draws parallels between this government censorship and Orwell&#8217;s fictional &#8220;Ministry of Truth.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1353,"featured_media":1966345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1966344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}