A Look at Postmodernism and Truth – Fake News – Continued (Column 55)

With God's help

(You're getting another column because I can't restrain myself. Two articles I read today have awakened me from my dogmatic slumber)

In column 53 I discussed the problematic nature of biased journalism. A person can no longer know anything about the world, because a postmodern worldview and the fad and phenomenon of fake news have brought us to a point where journalists write whatever they want. One can no longer know whether even the most basic things are nothing more than inventions of interested parties. As I said there, postmodernism not only points to this state of affairs; it is actually what creates it.

I was reminded of this when I just saw the article about Hamas's new leader in Gaza, one of those released in the Shalit deal, which includes quotations from the transcripts of his interrogation by the Shin Bet. The man coolly reports acts of abuse and personally strangling to death several people suspected of collaborating with Israel, or alternatively suspected of pornography and/or un-Islamic behavior. And no, I am not writing this because I suspect the quotations are fabricated, but on the contrary—because they strike me as authentic.

What am I getting at? I am now reminded of the period when Gilad Shalit was in captivity, and every media outlet kept repeating the mantras calling on the prime minister and the entire government to agree to a deal releasing terrorists in exchange for him. Not even a voice crying in the wilderness was heard in the opposite direction. Among 'the people' there reigned an astonishing and absolute consensus in favor of the deal. The only exceptions were a few rabbis, who were presented as a delirious, indifferent, and cruel right wing, betraying the package deal between the people and its soldiers according to which we must care for them at any price. Those rabbis kept repeating morning and night that this involved a certain danger to human life, while the experts and journalists explained to us that all this was nonsense. The Shin Bet knows what it is doing, and if it recommends it (did it in fact recommend it?), then it presumably has ways to monitor and neutralize the matter (see The Gatekeepers).

I remember very well the powerful sense of dissonance I felt, since around me there was a large, almost overwhelming majority against the deal (and I, of course, as usual, was looking for arguments as to why opposition was not inevitable and why there was something to be said for the other side. Truth be told, I did not really find much, apart from the fact that the Shin Bet presumably knew what it was doing)[1]. For some reason, none of this was visible in the media. There an astonishing consensus reigned that the deal was necessary and morally and politically unavoidable, and also not really dangerous from a security standpoint nor harmful diplomatically. They played on our parental emotions and on social solidarity, explained to us that all Jews are responsible for one another, and quoted the Hebrew Bible, the Sages, and perhaps also the Upanishads and ancient Zen aphorisms, to show how morally called-for and beyond dispute this step was. I remember very well my feeling that I was actually living in a bubble. In my bubble everyone thinks X, but in the wider surroundings everyone thinks Y. Very strange indeed.

I remember that my wife and I went to the Shalit family's protest tent opposite the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem to speak with them. We told them in all sincerity that despite our identification with and understanding of their approach and their actions, we strongly opposed the deal. They argued that the religious and right-wing public was indifferent, and wondered why it was not joining the protest. We told them that if the banner of the protest had not been a prisoner exchange deal but rather any other possible step (such as tightening restrictions on Hamas and the residents of Gaza, not returning the bodies of terrorists and burying them in pigskin, worsening the prison conditions of Hamas terrorists in Israel, retaliatory actions and targeted killings of Hamas operatives and its facilities, and certainly economic and infrastructural harm—electricity, money, crossings for people and goods, and the like), we were sure there would have been active participation by the right-wing and religious public, since it is hardly suspected of lacking solidarity with the IDF. The focus of the protest specifically on a prisoner exchange deal, together with the one-sided media brainwashing, is what prevented the right-wing religious public from taking part in the protests. They argued that this was their path, but that whoever thought differently should at least protest in the direction he believed in. That claim is correct in itself, but the feeling was that because every protest was interpreted as support for a prisoner exchange deal, people recoiled from the whole matter (just as there were no religious or right-wing people in the housing protest on Rothschild Boulevard, because the protest was interpreted—and with very good reason—as a political move against the right and the prime minister).

We know how it ended. Gilad Shalit was released, several of those freed in the deal have since managed to harm our citizens, the above transcripts came to light, and everyone now understands whom we released and what we did with our own hands, and how corrupt, foolish, and short-sighted all of this was—and all was once again right with the world. In fact, since then I have even heard in the media quite a few people lamenting the deal, voices that simply were not heard in real time. Either these people kept quiet or they were silenced (I think both answers are correct). At the time, almost only rabbis had the courage to come out openly against this disgraceful consensus and make such harsh and unpopular statements. I must say that, unusually in those days, I was very proud of them.

So what is the conclusion? There are several:

• Do not believe the media. Not its brainwashing in the realm of values (that there are no arguments against the deal), and not in the realm of facts (that among those who understand security and ethics there is no one who opposes it, and that there is a broad consensus among the public, polls and all, in its favor).
• Do not believe the experts. There is no such thing as experts in security. Almost everything there is agenda-driven (again, see The Gatekeepers). These people are experts, if at all, in what has been and not in what will be. Incidentally, this is part of the fraud of the social sciences, which cloak themselves in the academic mantle of the natural sciences and seek for themselves the same degree of trust.
• Do not dismiss conspiracies. Sometimes the way to persuade and preach is simply to mock anyone who does not believe, as though he were delusional and disconnected.
• And finally, something for the other side as well: be careful with distrust. There are things that seem reasonable and sensible; one should not surrender to the fake-news atmosphere and deny those too.

Now you can understand the connection to the second item I read today, right next to the item about that Righteous Among the Nations, the well-known saintly Hamas leader. Walla carries the following item: Kyrie Irving, one of the stars of the Cleveland Cavaliers (full disclosure: one of my favorite players and, in my humble opinion, one of the most talented), declares, astonishingly, that the earth is flat. He even receives backing from his teammate (same disclosure, only doubled), LeBron James. A player so gifted cannot be an unintelligent person (though see my remarks in column 35 on motor intelligence), and if he says this then apparently he has lost trust in the most basic information available to us.

Here the distrust already extends even to basic scientific information. After the debasement of science that has taken place in the social sciences and the humanities, where fashions replace reasons and arguments, it is no wonder that instead of those fields acquiring the aura of the natural sciences, the natural sciences suffer the loss of their own justified aura. To this must be added the severe biases, especially on charged issues, even in the natural sciences (evolution and God, neuroscience and free will). There too, scientists—some of them good and talented—take it upon themselves to babble nonsense in the name of science and its empirical findings. And there too the media pumps these opinions as though they were scientific facts, and presents opposing views as delusional and disconnected. Take all this, and you will naturally and inevitably get the loss of bearings described thus far.

Think for a moment: if there really are no good arguments against the Shalit deal, and if there really is an astonishing consensus in its favor among the Israeli public, then apparently we are living in a bubble. Well then, it may also be that what they are selling us about our planet being spherical is nothing more than a media conspiracy (I have already read learned religious articles explaining this very elegantly—how the Sages were right and science is false). Has any of you ever seen the earth from above (with your own eyes, not in a doctored newspaper picture)? So how do you know that it is really round? Who knows—maybe Kyrie the Elder is right?! In the age of fake news, these are the prices of the information biases and brainwashing in which we are so enveloped.

What remains for us to do, if we do not want to lose the remnants of trust in the information conveyed to us, is to use our own judgment and believe no one. Examine the arguments and do not believe the people making them. Beware of appeals to authority and of journalistic reports, and develop healthy skepticism, but at the same time understand that if ships disappear over the horizon then the earth probably is not flat. And perhaps also remember that, in the final analysis, even a devilishly talented basketball player can be no small fool, and despite the media's mockery of him, it is entirely possible that he really is mistaken…

[1] Incidentally, I strongly oppose the claim, repeated to this day, that because Shalit did not act properly and fell into captivity, he is not entitled to the efforts and the price demanded for his release. A soldier should not be judged for his conduct under pressure. None of us knows how we would behave in such a situation, and our obligation to secure his release is not conditional on whether he is a hero of Israel, a pathetic coward, or, most likely, simply an ordinary person.