Contented with stories

What is the cost of lies?

It’s not that we’ll mistake them for
the truth. The real danger is that
if we hear enough lies, then we no
longer recognize the truth at all.
What can we do then? What else is
left but to abandon even the hope of
truth, and content ourselves
instead… with stories.

In these stories, it doesn’t matter
who the heroes are. All we want to
know is: who is to blame?

Kid #5 and I have been watching the HBO/BBC 5-episode series Chernobyl (at his request). I’m “enjoying” it (as much as one can enjoy a series about near-global disaster, official deceit, and human suffering) – it’s well-constructed and the Soviet 80’s vibe is fascinating, and you also have five hours of Emily Watson looking extremely concerned and Jared Harris (Lane!) being thoughtfully frazzled and throwing back vodka shots.

Widely praised, with some critics – most instructive to me was this, from the New Yorker – on what the series got wrong about the Soviet system. The series’ focus is about lies, secrecy and authority, but this writer says it doesn’t go far enough and creates a “truth-teller against the establishment” narrative in a system where that was largely impossible.

The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.

(See, in another context, Fargo, season 3.)

Be that as it may.

The point is the rise of narrative over any sense of objective truth. There are deep roots of this, aside from human beings’ self-protective defense mechanisms. And you see it all over the place. And you see it, especially these days, when we are all overwhelmed by information. Who can dig through all the data available to us and determine truth on our own? Who has time? Who has the skills and understanding? Much easier to develop and narrative and stick to it.

It’s much easier to get people on your side by developing an emotionally-appealing narrative and push it, unrelentingly, and then vilify those who dare to question and dig.

As series creator Craig Mazin said: “The lesson is that lying, arrogance, and suppression of criticism are dangerous.”

This self-protective narrative construction can happen anywhere – in personal conversations, on social media, in institutions.

It’s fairly simple to identify, more challenging to combat. How to identify?

If the response to your question or inquiry is to call you a name, characterize you according to some identifier or alliance, or, more seriously, seek to expel you from whatever form of civilization is at stake – there you go.

And of course, social media, especially Twitter, lends itself to this tendency quite effortlessly and perhaps purposefully.

Even on Catholic Twitter (should I even say “even?” No reason to…) – the narrative-shaping, manufacturing of consent, caricatures and excommunications are constant – and as McLuhan says, there’s that media shaping the message again, because when you have 280 characters, who has time to present a case?

Slapping on labels – that is, creating the story – then pointing and laughing at whoever we’ve declared is to blame is much, much easier.