No need to be a wowser to insist that respect for truth cements civil society and that personal relationships, conduct in organizations and the implementation of governments’ policies depend on claims based on proven facts.
Exchange of truths contributes to trust, but if trust is absent, shared values, and mutual obligations slip away. When that happens says Zuboff, (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2019) confusion, uncertainty and distrust enable abusive power to fill the social void.
Conspiracy Theorists
A void in the US has been filled with falsehoods. From claims that Barack Obama was not born in America, to Trump’s assertion that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged, conspiracy theorists have contributed to division and conflict.
Despite the absurdity of the theorists’ stories, millions swallow them. Trump claimed that an injection of bleach could be a cure for Covid. The QAnon theory said that Democrats, Hollywood, and a global elite promoted a paedophile ring commanded by Hillary Clinton from a Washington Pizza shop which was practising abduction, trafficking, torture, sexual abuse, and cannibalization of children.
Social media platforms facilitate opportunities to lie, and in that frenzied world, credibility depends on numbers of Twitter or Facebook followers so why bother about evidence? In the Trump nurtured deceits, self-promotion has become an alternative to the careful compilation of facts.
Australian Response
Commentary on US politics should not allow holier than thou assumptions about the Australian political scene. Prime Minister Morrison and Deputy PM McCormack have not condemned Trump’s encouragement of lying and violence. Unwilling to be held accountable for rorts which look like fraud, they also protect their own conspiracy theorists.
Against the conclusions of over fifty US judges that there was no fraud in the Presidential election, George Christensen claims the Biden victory was stolen. On Facebook, Craig Kelly has supported Trump remedies for Coronavirus, including the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, even claiming there is a special place in hell for authorities who don’t authorize it.
On the violent invasion of the Capitol, Kelly argues that neo-Fascist and Marxists infiltrated Trump supporters, that leftist loyalists influenced the invasion of the Capitol and must be the real domestic terrorists.
In defence of these MPs, McCormack, the PM and Treasurer Frydenburg produce the lazy cliche that Australia is a free country, so Christensen and Kelly can say what they like. On the contrary, freedom of speech carries a responsibility to search for truth. It does not allow for lying, for crafting fantasy worlds let alone make statements easily interpreted as a license for violence.
Response to the Covid pandemic provides a lesson for those who think that freedom of speech is absolute. Facing a potentially fatal virus, citizens’ freedoms have been secured by lockdowns to prevent infections and thereby protect freedoms. The argument that restrictions interfere with individual freedom may have motivated protesters to demand ‘don’t wear masks’, but this implied ‘spread the virus, it’s a form of freedom.’
Assessing Freedom of Speech
Two criteria, the test of reasonableness and concern for public interest, set boundaries on freedom of speech.
Reasonableness asks for evidence for speakers’ claims. Were judges wrong about the outcome of the US election? Is there any evidence that so-called Marxists were the instigators of the invasion of the Capitol?
Lying fails the test of reasonableness. Like lying in the classroom or in the workplace, it is corrosive, and creates mistrust.
Public interest criteria presuppose a contribution to education about public wellbeing and respect for human rights. It is not in the public interest to make false claims about elections, to deny scientific evidence of global warming or collude in environmental destruction.
It is trite for Morrison to say that Australia is a free country, for Frydenburg to try to sound lofty by referring to Voltaire and for McCormack to say he’s against censorship.
McCormack’s utterances are also inaccurate and divisive. By comparing the right-wing thugs who invaded the US Capitol with protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement, he glosses over the massive racial divides which contribute to injustice in Australia and the US.
McCormack values individual rights and seems to advocate the privatization of speech. Instead, Australia desperately needs a political movement to advocate a language for humanity, for social equality and for humane governance.
The brilliant Turkish novelist and political commentator, Ece Temelkuram, (How To Lose A Country 2019), says if citizens do not spot trends which erode truths, human rights and political accountability, a country’s democratic traditions can be easily lost. She was speaking about Turkey, but her observations apply to every democracy.
Once anti-truth, anti-democratic forces gain momentum, a post-modern world arrives where everyone has their own version of truth, and the universals that have cemented societies – as in reliance on science, on respect for the rule of law and on ethics of responsibility – are discarded.
Freedom of speech is invaluable but not via freedom which ignores falsehoods, not the Trump, conspiratorial variety.
Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.
Comments
10 responses to “Conspiracy Theorists, Free Speech and Australian Politicians”
Thank you Stuart Rees for holding truth up to scrutiny and reminding us that freedom of speech holds the responsibility of accountability to not deliberately use the medium for one’s own agenda. Many of the comments here are side-line arguments. To compare religion and a belief in god to deliberately spread misinformation to serve a political cause is outrageous. Censorship of lies is not censorship in any true sense and fighting for the right to spread misinformation and lies is not a real struggle or one we should be advocating for. All media should be publishing to the standards of the national press council and journalistic codes of ethics and hold integrity towards accurately reporting real facts, questioning falsehoods, and maintaining accuracy. Trumpism and its Australian wanna-be’s take note – integrity does not have a secondary meaning.
Given the sheer amount of circulating bulldust, I suspect any sensitive person would seek whatever stability they could find, whether in “the old certainties”, or in the case of Professor Rees, an appeal to “the universals that have cemented societies…”. Ahh….if only that were so.
There has never been, at any stage of human history, a wholly common or universal agreement about anything – a simple ‘truth’ to which Mr. Ti eloquently draws our attention. Sadly, the human search for certainty has found only approximation. For a hell of a lot of people, that’s just not acceptable; disagreements arise which lead to problems, some of which Mr. Ti describes.
The late Spike Milligan had an unerring eye for human foibles, and among his monologues was a reference to a long-dead British politician who once proclaimed: “I am a great man!”. To which Spike responded: “You can’t argue with facts like that!”.
We find ourselves adrift on an ocean of assertions. It’s no wonder we are tempted to look for something to hang on to. But, seriously, who among us has the time, the energy, the knowledge, the temerity and persistence to examine all of them? Short answer? No one!
We must proceed in the world with whatever we have, and if we are sincere about our common welfare, indeed our common survival, we will strive to do the best we can. Good luck to us all.
This is a biased, superficial, judgmental, premature and general all-round crappy post that ignores the two great lies of the times — the Russiagate hoax that has been traced back to Obama before he left the White House and the more recent cover-up of the Hunter Biden story to protect his Dad’s political skin in a remarkably close election.
Any evidence for that?
William Binney disproved the Russia theory. It is a matter of speeds. Over my head but well publicised since 2017. The Democrat National Committee files were downloaded to a device such as a thumb drive. Presumably Julian Assange knows who leaked them but is not saying. Reasonable to suspect it was somebody among the Democrats who disliked the Clintons. That leaves a large field. Politics is not a game of gentlemen. Glenn Greenwald has written forcefully on the Hunter Biden story.
I enjoyed reading Stuart Rees’s article. One scenario he didn’t discuss is that people like Christensen and Kelly don’t really believe in very much, possibly even the Russiagate hoax and may not even heard of Hunter Biden. Perhaps, like Trump they have been granted celebrity status by a new form of media that allows them to say any form of crap that enters their heads.
Christensen was one of the few Australian MPs with the guts to go to London and stand up for Julian Assange and gets respect from me for that alone. Kelly has committed the heinous sin of speaking politically incorrect home truths and failing to kiss Dr Fauci’s arse. Stuart has thrown us a bucket of slops from the sewer of the official narrative normally distributed free of charge by by a tame, uncritical and surprisingly unquestioning mainstream media. It was a disappointingly poor post from Stuart, who is normally worth reading.
Sir,
I agree with everything that you said except the last part when you say:
“… a post-modern world arrives where everyone has their own version of truth, and the universals that have cemented societies – as in reliance on science, on respect for the rule of law and on ethics of responsibility – are discarded.”
I am not an expert on post-modernism but what I understand of post-modernism tells me that it reflects too much of the real world to be discarded so easily. Everyone may have their own version of truth but not everyone’s truth has the same validity, depending on the evidence that they bring to bear on it. Instead of saying that the truth is relative, it is better to say that the truth is “contextual”. The reason I say this is that I do not believe that there is at all an “absolute” truth. I mentioned before some time ago in one of my comments that even scientific truth is not absolute but only lasts as long as the next theory that replaces it. Old theories work for us at the time and within the context of our existing knowledge. When new knowledge come up, we have to find new theories to explain and contextualise our new findings.
To bring up the most emotive idea about truth, I cannot help but introduce the example of the “truth” that God exists (my intention is just to discuss a point – I hope I am forgiven if religious people are offended, many of whom are good friends). If a person is brought up in a religious household with a particular religious tradition, the existence of God is an undeniable truth. Belief in God lends meaning to the whole of their existence in this world. That goes for almost all the Western and Eastern religions. They all take their guidance of truth from their “holy book”. Yet the differences in the truth embedded in their “holy books” are so great that wars break out throughout history because of these differences, even to the extent of differences between different sects of the same religion (eg Sunni and Shiite).
Now, this brings us to the question of how true are the truths in the religious teachings. I believe that religion is not based on any verifiable truths but “faith”. After a long and fruitless argument about the existence of God with religious friends, they invariably end up saying, “First, you must believe. The the truth will come to you”. In other words, they are asking me to take a leap of faith. This is where, the construct of “truth” and “faith” becomes conflated if not confounded.
The most interesting observation I have made about Trump supporters is that it is this same leap of faith that motivates their belief in Donald Trump. It is not a coincidence that his biggest number of supporters came from the “bible belt” of the US. That is why every lie that he tells is taken as the truth, one premised on faith. In this, I believe that post-modernism describes the situation rather than supports every truth held by everyone regardless of veracity.
Most historians will say that the prerogative of history lies with the victor. This idea supports post-modernism. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong were described as terrorists by the Americans and their allies. To the Vietcong and Vietminh, the Americans are the invaders ( one cannot deny them the truth that the Americans were on their land, armed to kill). When the North Vietnamese won the war, their version of the truth now prevails.
The world is in a constant state of conflict because we all have different truths and versions of truth. I saw a television program in which an Israeli settler on Palestinian land said “God gave us the land” when asked about his claim to the land in the West Bank. Likewise, the Palestinians will make a similar claim; and more on historical grounds. Who has the truth when “God” comes into the equation? The reason why we never come to any permanent solutions is that everyone has his own truth which is further complicated by changes with time and circumstance.
Unless one is mad, non of us would dare to say that we have the absolute truth. The ability to concede a level of truth to another person from a different background and brought up on a different perspective of the world is a sign of tolerance. Even if they say something quite shocking to us, we should try to understand where they are coming from and why they believe what they do. After all, we all experience different things in our lives. I believe that is why Existentialism says, “Existence before Essence”. Our experience of the world informs us about our idea of reality. Being a dog lover, I can nevertheless understand why a dog is a beast to one who has been badly bitten or mauled by one.
I would say in the final analysis that post-modernism is more descriptive than prescriptive in its philosophy about truth. So, how do we come around to any semblance of truth to guide our judgements? Truth must be supported by empirical evidence and lots of good faith. Only then can it give rise to a good solution. Even then, we will never have anything like an “absolute truth”.
Please critique what I say above so that I can continue to clear the cobwebs in my mind.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Hi Teow. I disagreed with most of Stuart’s post but I find your comments fascinating, not for the first time. You are an original thinker who goes back to first principles. Thank you for taking the time to put down these thoughts. It was worth the anguish of reading Stuart’s rant to get to your reflections.
Interestingly enough, while the exchange of truths may lead to trust, the exchange falsehoods may also lead to trust. Get Smart was famous for its hilarious use of nonsensical countersigns.
The exchange of nonsense is highly effective at identifying fellow travellers, where the exchange of truths merely identifies the observant.
Watch any AFL game and you will frequently be treated to the sight of half the crowd calling “ball” and half calling “man”.