Believe in truth
On Tyranny, chapter 10
Abandoning facts is abandoning freedom. If nothing is true, there is no basis upon which power can be criticized. Those with the most money pay for the most blinding lights.
Truth dies in four modes:
- Open hostility to verifiable reality, by presenting lies as if they were facts.
- Shamanistic incantation: endless repetition that makes the fictional plausible.
- Magical thinking: open embrace of contradiction, like "billionaires can't pay taxes."
- Misplaced faith: believing that a single person, usually the person orchestrating the lies, is the only solution to all the problems.
See also: post-truth.