“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” – Samuel Johnson
Few things are more important in life than the facts and the truth. Ironically, the quest for both has waned over generations. Today, fact and truth suffer the narcissism of a generation of self-indulgent ideologues who have sought to shape the world to their belief system, doing so armed with little more than falsely elevated self-esteem. The result has been to bring our great nation to a divide not seen since the US Civil War; a divide of politics, ideology and culture; a divide that threatens our Republic's very existence.
Samuel Johnson's adage about truth being a casualty of war is not exclusive to wars of nations, it is applicable to wars of all breeds: cultural, violent, ideological and political. In fact, today's American culture places more worth on the delivery of words than on the credibility of words. A gifted orator can mesmerize the citizenry into reacting to a melodic tone and artful inflection and into caring little for the accuracy of the statements being made. He can pass impossibilities as realities using hollow promises, promises that serve as distractions to truth and fact. Truth be told, today, the American public is more interested in being captivated by the “bright shiny” distraction, being entertained by the slickly delivered sleight-of-hand rhetoric of “hope” and “change,” than they are in gathering the facts in an effort to better understand reality.
Mainstream Media
Nowhere are truth and fact more dispensable than in today's mainstream media. Where in times past the term journalist elicited respect and an aura of daring and integrity, today the public views “journalists” with as much contempt as politicians and shyster lawyers, and rightly so. Where journalists of days gone by used to hold to a code of ethic in delivering the truth, today “journalists” pro-actively advocate and editorialize the news.
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Frank Salvato also serves as the managing editor for The New Media Journal. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention.
