Fact-Checking Politicians in an Age of Postmodernism
By: Brian Tubbs
Tags: Politics, Truth, Postmodernism, Facts, Donald Trump

“Houston, we have a problem!” It’s one of the most famous lines in the history of space exploration. It’s even been spoken by Tom Hanks in one of my favorite Tom Hanks movies: Apollo 13.

I can’t think of a better way to introduce this topic than by saying:

“America, we have a problem!”

When I was growing up, political conflicts centered mostly on what to do with the facts on the table and how best to solve our problems. Today, we can’t even agree on what constitutes either “facts” or “problems.”

This makes communication — and therefore democracy — all but impossible.

And the main culprit is…

Donald Trump!?

That’s what we’re hearing, of course.

Here’s Glenn Kessler writing for The Washington Post:

The president is a serial exaggerator without parallel in U.S. politics. He not only consistently makes false claims, but also repeats them, in some cases hundreds of times, even though they have been proved wrong. (Kessler, G., 2020, December 18. “The biggest Pinocchios of 2020.” The Washington Post.)

As of October 16, The Washington Post logged over 25,000 “false or misleading claims” made by the President.

Just Google “facts” and “Trump” and look at all the articles that turn up. I could go on and on with examples, but I doubt I need to do so.

With this article, I don’t want to simply toss another log into that fire. Rather, I want to ask what started the fire in the first place.

What criteria does one use to determine a “fact”? And how do we know when someone has made a statement that contradicts a “fact”?

It seems to me that much of the political debates taking place in our society — whether about Trump, immigration, race, poverty, social justice, gender, or a host of other important issues — do so in a muddy, foggy epistemological quagmire.

Rather than be humbled by our obscured vision or tenuous footing, most participants in political disagreements today simply shout more and push harder.

Perhaps instead of doubling down on hate and vitriol, we should pause and ask ourselves how we got into this awful mess in the first place.

It’s my contention that the real culprit for our nation’s crisis of truth and facts is none other than postmodernism.

And we may as well give up “fact-checking” politicians (including, but not limited to, President Trump) until we decide what we’re going to do with postmodernism.

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

What is Postmodernism?

The postmodern understanding of “truth” was perhaps best expressed over 1,800 years ago when the Roman emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius said the following: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not a truth.”

Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning English playwright and dramatist, once declared:

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” (Pinter, H., 2005. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005)

Postmodernists maintain that propositional truth claims are inevitably constructed within individual or group perspectives, linguistic limitations, and cultural contexts.

Furthermore, postmodern thinkers argue that, given the sheer amount of data (including that which is inaccessible to us), the innumerable ways such data can be interpreted, and the never-ending disagreements over much of that data, it’s beyond arrogant to assume one can know the truth.

The popularity of postmodernism is of course driven by its rejection of power structures (especially religious ones or those formed by majoritarian or capitalist hegemony) and its inclusion of new and more diverse voices and personalities.

As we will see, however, sometimes the medicine for certain ailments can be worse than the ailments themselves.

The Humbling of Modernism

Postmodernists made one extremely important contribution to the fields of philosophy and knowledge, and that is to remind human beings of their limitations — to, in essence, put people in their place!

Modernism needed to be humbled. The idea that we could construct a perfect society through knowledge and reason alone is presumptuous, to say the least. And that was the lie embraced by modernists during the height of the Enlightenment Age.

Postmodernism shatters those delusions by reminding us (painfully) that scaling the Mountain of Truth is fraught with danger, deception, and difficulty. No individual, group, or society can (or will) lay claim to perfection — including the acquisition of complete and perfect knowledge.

It’s also healthy to question and challenge dominant cultural and religious power structures to ensure that people aren’t abused or oppressed by false beliefs, corrupt leaders and power brokers, and unfounded claims.

In these respects (something most of us have accepted), we owe postmodernism a debt of gratitude.

Unfortunately, postmodernism wasn’t content to simply point out the limitations of human nature, the dangers of unquestioned authority structures, or extreme modernism.

We now find ourselves in a postmodern world that argues truth (even if it exists in any kind of objective, meaningful sense) is either subordinate to a person’s or group’s perspective or basically unknowable altogether.

The Incoherence and Danger of Postmodernism

Let’s take Harold Pinter’s inane quote cited above. One only needs to contemplate that quote for a brief amount of time to recognize how utterly incoherent Pinter is being.

If Pinter were merely talking about ice cream flavors, the statement would work fine. But when you move outside the realm of taste and preference, Pinter’s philosophy is shown to be (shall we say?) flawed.

For example, if your gas tank meter shows your car is empty, that meter is either true or false. It can’t be both true and false. Either the gas tank is empty or it’s not, and if you choose to disregard the meter and keep driving, odds are you will find out (fairly quickly) whether the meter is correct or not.

There are plenty of examples along those lines which show the lunacy of Pinter’s statement, but that’s not the only reason we know it’s bogus.

The statement is also self-refuting. It purports to give us new insight — new information. Yet by saying that things (which presumably would include statements like, well, Pinter’s statement itself) are neither true nor false, it decimates its own credibility. By Pinter’s own (I’ll be generous) logic, what Pinter says is “not necessarily true or false.” Pinter’s words can be “both true and false.” If that’s so, the statement contains absolutely no real value. Therefore, why am I wasting my time even reading his statement or talking about it? In fact, why is Pinter wasting his time saying it — or, for that matter, saying anything at all?

What’s true for Pinter’s statement is true for postmodernism overall. Postmodernists refute themselves.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

It’s one thing to examine truth claims or reexamine narratives from a standpoint of facts, reason, and evidence. It’s quite another to question truth claims or narratives from a standpoint that argues such claims or narratives themselves are intrinsically invalid.

If it’s any consolation, Pinter himself saw (at least to a point) the unworkability of his own philosophy — at least in a civic context. Referring to his famous (and somewhat controversial statement), he clarified:

“I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?” (Pinter, H., 2005. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005)

The Way Forward

I opened this essay by quoting one of the most famous lines in NASA history, and yet even this quote points to some of the difficulties we face in getting at the facts. The movie Apollo 13 got it wrong.

Lovell didn’t exactly say, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” Instead…

According to official NASA records, Jack Swigert was the first astronaut to mention the “p” word, when he said, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” After being prompted to repeat the transmission by CAPCOM Jack R. Lousma, Jim Lovell responded, “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

As we can see, it’s not easy getting to the real, hard facts.

Those who decide to check the facts are often compromised in their efforts due to their own biases. In addition, studies show that our observations of certain events are often clouded by and filtered through what experts call our sense of “cultural cognition.”

Postmodernists are correct that we should be cautious and skeptical when it comes to truth claims.

Observation, fact-checking, and the search for truth requires patience, self-awareness, humility, and perseverance.

Any attempt on our part to get to the facts or to seek out truth requires patience, self-awareness, humility, accountability, and perseverance. It also means we must accept that sometimes, we will succeed, and sometimes we won’t — hence, the importance of patience and humility.

Fact-checking and truth-seeking take hard work. And these pursuits take time — sometimes a long time. And, again, we may not always be successful.

This should not discourage us. It should enlighten and chasten us.

In fact, I believe human limitations should lead us toward humility and being more kind, forgiving, and gracious toward our fellow human beings — including those with whom we disagree. We need more compassion and a little less angry passion.

We do need humility and patience, but I believe that we can have success in the endeavor of truth-seeking more often than not if we’re willing to take the right steps and pay the price. I think of the words of George Washington:

“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”

How much pain are we willing to go through to get the facts and learn the truth? And, trust me, the time, energy, and (sometimes) sacrifice we must make will require some pain.

And that’s the lie of postmodernism. It promises to let us keep “our truth” without that pain. Any pain is reserved for those who would dare to challenge our truth.

But if we’re going to live in a democratic society, then we must respect the right of people to disagree with us. And we must recognize that disagreement is not (at least not inherently) the same as hate.

Unfortunately, in a postmodernist society, people tend to insist on their own perspective and zealously guard their own narratives — all while retreating to their own “bubbles” and “echo chambers.” Rather than patiently listen to or constructively engage with those of other views or perspectives, they decry and hate those who challenge their respective narratives and comfort zones.

No democratic society can survive, much less survive, if postmodernism reigns supreme.

Therefore, while many writers (including here on Medium) bemoan or lament the many and repeated false and misleading claims made by politicians (including President Trump), I would rather focus my energy on getting at the heart of the issue, which is…

Fact-checking, as an enterprise, is doomed to failure in a culture that embraces postmodernism.

We can have facts if we work hard at getting at them — at least much of the time. But we can’t have facts in a postmodern context. It cannot happen.

Bottom line: You can have facts or you can have postmodernism, but you can’t have both.

Which is it going to be?