18th October 2024

‘This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no-one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.

And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subject to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.’

So warned Hannah Arendt (1906–75) a German Jewish philosopher who just managed to escape the Gestapo both in her native Germany and occupied France, then lived the rest of her life in the USA. Drawing both on her Biblical heritage and philosophy she was deeply concerned with ethics, faith and their role in society. She was quick to see how some politicians and would-be influencers of opinion are concerned with promoting as ‘facts’ whatever will attract votes and gain or secure power. The only ‘truth’ that matters to them is what will make them popular. With the growth of far-right populism in the USA, aided by the dissemination of half-truths and downright lies on social media, thoughtful people there are heeding her message anew – and surely so should we be.

Distinguishing facts from fiction means courage, vigilance and hard work. Most of all, in any situation of public controversy it means asking the question few will bother to raise: ‘Who is actually going to benefit, and who will suffer, as a result of such views being voiced and popularised?’ That’s an agenda for the church, whose leader said ‘The truth will set you free’. Truth matters.

Keith Clements