Who killed truth?

Since the Brexit referendum and Trump 1.0, much has been said about mis- and disinformation. Words like "post-truth", "fake-news" and "misinformation" have entered common parlance. It is fair to say we have a problem with truth, leading to plummeting trust in public institutions.

Who bears responsibility for this? Shall we point the finger at disinformers who's intention is to lie? Or misinformers who believe what they say is true, however spurious. I think we're all complicit. Our willingness to swallow bromides and lies wholesale, our participation in spreading them, and the failure to adequately respond to the challenge, implicate us all.

I was reading Nietzsche's aphorism 125 of the "God is dead!" fame and I wondered how it would read if we replaced "God" with "truth", or even "Truth".

Haven’t you heard about the Madman who, having lit a lantern under the noonday sun, ran to the marketplace and cried incessantly, ‘I seek truth, I seek truth!’ As many of those who do not believe in truth were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Why, have we lost him? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed.

‘Whither is truth!’ he cried. ‘I shall tell you. We have killed it – you and I! All of us are its murderers.’

Truth is dead! Truth remains dead! And it is we who have killed it. How shall we, murderers among murderers, comfort ourselves? What was the holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood from our hands?

But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to blot out the whole horizon? What did we do to unchain the earth from its sun? Where is the planet spinning to now? To what place is its movement carrying us? Far from all suns? Have we not tumbled into a continuous fall? A fall backwards, sideways, forwards, in every direction? Do high and low still exist? Are we not wandering as if across an infinite void? Do we not feel the breath of nothingness upon us? Is it not colder? Is it not night-time unceasingly and more and more night-time? Must we not light our lanterns even in the morning? Do we hear nothing yet of the noise of the gravediggers who have buried truth? Do we smell nothing yet of the divine putrefaction?

Here the Madman fell silent and examined anew his listeners: they too were silent and watched him without understanding. Finally he hurled his lantern to the ground so that it broke and ceased shining. ‘I come too early,’ he said then, ‘my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering – it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars – and yet it is they who have done it!’

Plenty of fodder for deconstruction. Perhaps a task for a future post.

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