Introduction
In the twenty-first century, thanks largely to science and to the freedom of thought that we are fortunate to have more access to the truth than in any earlier age.Science has advanced as the strait-jacket of religion has lost its power to force conformity onto society over the past few centuries.
Freedom of speech and freedom of thought have been essentials in the pursuit of both science and truth.
I've written a page on where we can look to find the truth and reliable information and I've written on the importance of always holding onto some level of doubt on my Ethics page.
Is it curious that while truth is so fundamentally important to me that it has taken me several decades to write a page specifically on the subject!
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Truth is endangered as much in this age as any other
So called 'alternative facts' came to be heard of frequently, in the run-up to, and during Donal Trump's presidency. I doubt that there has ever been a leader of an advanced nation that told anywhere near as many blatant lies as Mr Trump.Since Trump's time in office there are those who seem to be following his example in Australia, although not quite to such an extent. Both Liberal/National coalition and Labor governments in Australia criticise the national broadcaster, the ABC, because it gives the truth to the spin that so often comes from government ministers instead of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth".
The burning of fossil fuels is widely recognised as the main cause of climate change, ocean acidification, ocean warming and sea level rise. The air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels kills millions of people world-wide each year. Those who run the fossil fuel industries, in Australia and elsewhere, have strong reasons to stop people knowing the truth about their industry and their behaviour.
Both the political parties that have formed Australian governments over the past several decades receive large donations from the fossil fuel industries. And the fossil fuel industries are major employers and investors in Australia. The fossil fuel industries try to convince the Australian people, often with the connivance of the government of the day, of 'alternative facts and truths'.
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While the federal Labor party is far from 'clean' I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Liberal/National coalition are even more in the pockets of the fossil fuel industries.
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Is truth endangered in Australia?
Politicians in general don't have have a strong reputation for honesty. When interviewed most avoid answering the questions put to them.
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As an example a few months ago the dishonesty of the federal representative for the Western Australian seat of Canning (Andrew Hastie, in who's electorate I live) came to my notice when he ran a very misleading scare campaign against a proposed offshore wind farm zone.
Many will have noticed that Donald Trump’s supporters don’t seem to care how many lies he tells, so long as they like the messages he sends.
I wonder if Andrew Hastie's supporters feel the same way. I’ve documented many of Mr Hastie’s misleading statements, exaggerations and lies but I suspect a lot of his supporters wouldn’t bother even glancing at the list.
I’d hate to see Australian politics go the same way as US politics.
Howard Zinn quotes
The lesson of history
Address to Spelman College, 2005:"The lesson of history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government will try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. My hope is that you will not be content to be successful in the way our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules, when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know is in you."
Howard Zinn on civil disobedience
In 1970 Howard Zinn wrote a piece titled: History is a Weapon: The Problem of Civil Obedience.A couple of quotes from what he wrote:
"I start from the supposition that the world is topsy-turvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside down.This was written at the time of the Vietnam war, and largely in response to the injustice of the Vietnam war, but it applies very much today in regard to the Climate Crisis; our nations (certainly Australia and the USA) are again (or still?) being run by criminals.
And our topic is topsy-turvy: civil disobedience. As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem. We recognize this for Nazi Germany. We know that the problem there was obedience, that the people obeyed Hitler. People obeyed; that was wrong. They should have challenged, and they should have resisted; and if we were only there, we would have showed them. Even in Stalin's Russia we can understand that; people are obedient, all these herdlike people."