Shamelessness: The Key To A Post-Truth Society
When ignorance is a virtue, truth dies. In a way, so does society.
Today's Bad Faith Times blog comes courtesy of John Fosberry, Jr., a history teacher and esteemed member of the BFT discord community.
Having toddlers means you find yourself in many small-talk situations with fellow parents, at playgrounds, waiting rooms, libraries, wherever else kids and parents might gather. In Massachusetts, where I live, dad small talk usually involves deriding John Henry for not spending more of his billions on the Red Sox or talking about Patriots QB Drake Maye as the second coming.
When work comes up, people normally react to my job – history teacher – with either, “I hated history,” or, “History was my favorite class.” Both, in my view, are acceptable responses. The more mundane the small talk, the better.
Last spring, I was at a kid's party on a sun-drenched lake with a playground and tons of green space. Kids everywhere, other parties happening, truly a lovely afternoon. The party was for the son of a friend of my wife, where we would be meeting all the other guests for the first time. We were in the small talk gambit together. Naturally, the small talk monster was everywhere. This time, when I mentioned my job (Ancient History teacher), one of the other dudes brought up a fellow named Graham Hancock.
For those that have had the pleasure of not knowing who he is, he is a pseudo-archaeologist with a Netflix docuseries called Ancient Apocalypse. Hancock's docuseries theorizes that there were highly advanced civilizations on earth around 12,000 years ago, predating the Neolithic era and Bronze Age civilizations you learn about in middle school (my class). It’s Ancient Aliens without the little green men.
Denny Carter
When asked about him, I kind of laughed it off until I realized this guy was serious about his belief in this theory. Hancock, who the archaeology community has laughed at and discredited for his circumstantial postulates, had gained credibility with this normal dude because of a Netflix show, and of course, going on the most-listened podcast on Earth, The Joe Rogan Experience. I brought up other reputable podcasts about the ancient world (Dan Carlin, Tides of History, History of the World in 100 Objects) that I preferred to Graham Hancock or Joe Rogan and he immediately turned the burden of proof around onto me, the guy with the Masters degree in teaching History (please clap) giving him resources of others with better credentials than I.
“Dan Carlin does the same thing,” this man said to me, referencing another pop culture history guy who has also gone on the Rogan show, but unlike Hancock, has done the required reading. Like Gandalf at first light on the fifth day, the toddlers came running to us for something and mercifully ended the conversation. This fellow dad – spouting off about things for which he is deeply ignorant – left our talk without feeling an ounce of humility, and certainly no shame.
This conversation is a microcosm of the post-truth, shame-free society we currently navigate. The largest societal consequence from the COVID pandemic was the erosion of trust in the credentialed, the experts. Just last week, worm-brained RFK Jr. said Americans should not trust experts because trusting experts is inherently un-democratic. This, as you might know, is a widely held belief in post-COVID America.
‘Twas not the lifelong public health care/medical professionals we should be listening to, but the townie who fell asleep every day in sophomore biology class who “heard this on Rogan, bro.”
The best part is, these people, who are generally good people at heart, are thoroughly convinced their personal Youtube algorithm or TikTok feed is more correct than peer-reviewed professionals in their fields. The worst part of all of this is that you can find some actual experts in their field, or content creators that present from these said experts, on these same platforms! In theory, people with an actual interest in being correct about any topic should be open to accepting more credible information. As much as I want to ignore the New England Patriots’ DVOA, it probably would provide a more accurate outlook of the team as the games get more important, so I begrudgingly take the football analytics nerds at their word about opponent strength and whatnot (BFT's fourth most popular bloggers among them).
This requires people to engage in the thing most American dudes fear the most: Admitting your own ignorance. As the internet steals our face-to-face interpersonal skills, one of the components it erodes is the ability to feel shame. Shame, a normal human emotion, is needed in small doses from time to time. Not to be hyperbolic, but it’s how humans have built modern civilization from tiny agricultural communities in river valleys. You needed to learn how to be a member of society in order to do your part in that society. There are “ways things are done” that you need to learn how to do, and they will be done that way until another, repeatable, way to do it is figured out. Our internet world has built an army of people who scoff at what they need to learn. Their shame lever has been broken off.
Denny Carter
The Ancient Apocalypse believer I met at a child's birthday didn’t feel any shame about being challenged by someone who has spent a decade teaching ancient history and instead felt comfortable challenging them (me). I’m not confrontational; I answered as politely as humanly possible when asked about Hancock and it was still, “How dare I say someone, who the greater historical community thinks is a quack, is in fact, a quack.”
This is the neat little trick shamelessness and post-truth society has pulled on us. Enough people on the internet will confirm your priors and muddy the waters enough to make you feel like you have something to stand on and the people with the knowledge, or the advice on how to find the knowledge, are the jerks. Actual experts are fine to be proven wrong when new, hard evidence comes to light. It is not bad to accept that maybe your algorithm is leading you astray, that it was programmed to make you think a certain way.
I’ll even accept watching Ancient Apocalypse for entertainment purposes in the way one would watch Indiana Jones. Shame should be felt as an opportunity to reflect and learn. It’s how it’s been happening offline for thousands of years. Only recently has our thoughtless, impersonal, digitized American society turned this on its head and embraced ignorance as a virtue. Returning to a truth-based society will require lots of reflection by people who may find reflection terribly uncomfortable.
As fruitless as it felt, maybe this conversation at a toddler's party made this dude second guess himself the next time Rogan had some shameless truther on his show. That’s a nice little start.
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