Is it Mere Ignorance or Duplicity? (Part 2)
Few deny on either wing of the sociopolitical continuum that Donald Trump deliberately lies, misspeaks, exaggerates, projects, bloviates, etc. Distinctions should be made between these.
Exaggeration can be legitimately deployed as rhetorical device. Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau once logically countered the legitimacy of Quebec seceding from Canada by reductio ad absurdum extrapolation. If Quebec can legally secede from Canada, then the island of Montreal could secede from Quebec. By further extrapolation, every individual could declare (and some have declared) themselves a sovereign state. The city state of Montreal is highly unlikely to occur.
However, the lascivious use of some of these polemical devices is perilous to the survival and welfare of a free civic polity.
However, Joe Biden has likewise exposited many a whopper, even silly whoppers, and much bloviation. The comparative assessment of the prevarications, dissembling, and sophistries by these politicos has been lacking in equity. Trump always lies but Biden merely misspeaks. The self-anointed fact checkers need to be fact-checked, who themselves need to be fact-checked, who themselves need to be fact-checked in infinite regress. It sort of defeats the purpose of fact-checking.
However, mendacity pervades more among the foot soldiers of the Progressive Left than the Populist Right, although abundant on that wing of the sociopolitical continuum as well.
The greatest and most dangerous of these lies and deceptions has involved the long-standing “cover-up” of Joe Biden’s mental incompetence (non compos mentis). The uncovering of the king’s nakedness in recent days is most delicious because the perpetrators of these lies are now in a bind of their own making. (“The wicked is ensnared by the transgression of his lips” – Proverbs 12:13.)
But how stupid must an American be, in order not to see the myriad of differing artifacts in the months and years preceding, indicating the Biden had become too senile for the job? Certainly, we foreigners have seen and commented on it, including America’s geopolitical adversaries, no doubt to their own advantage. Fortunately, there were fewer among the commons who were deceived by this choreographed deception than I had previously thought.
But do we hear a peep out of Russell Moore about this grandiose prevarication? His silence is deafening.
The Dearth of Intellectual Integrity
As previously noted, sexual sins and racism, even intolerance towards the LGBT+++, are the circumscribed and myopic ethical framework of Russell Moore by which he adjudges society and its personalities. It is understandable if conservative Evangelicals, of which I am not one, scorn and dismiss Moore as a mere sycophantic Democrat at Prayer.
However, I contend that the dearth of intellectual integrity in contemporary society is a far greater evil and a root of much evil, although it is difficult to trace this character trait’s harms from root to fruit. This dearth of intellectual integrity pervades the academe, especially the social sciences, including economics and psychology. As evident in the climate “sciences” (i.e., Climategate) and through the COVID-19 epidemic, this dishonesty and deceit have metastasized into the harder sciences, even medicine. And don’t get me started on the Christian seminarians and theologians!
If one lacks intellectual integrity, and habitually exercises in lies and deceptions, one will not be able to discern the truth and navigate the realities of existence, even when one finally desires to do so.
We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom. Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.
– Isaiah 59:9b–10
Some have noticed the recent decline in scientific discovery and technological innovation. A large component of this decline can be laid at the feet of this pandemic of mendacity, attested by academic cheating (80%+) among post-secondary students. Can the leopard change its spots? Can the dishonest student become the epitome of intellectual integrity once released into the work world?
A pandemic of mendacity breeds a milieu of pervasive distrust and contempt, undermining societal cohesion and the moral legitimacy and authority of the organs of society. Autocracy invariably occurs on the ashes of pervasive distrust towards existing authorities, as attested by the late Weimar Republic or the Romanov dynasty. Hitler was easily able to overthrow the existing centers of social power because virtually all of these centers (and potential rallying points) had lost all moral authority and credibility among the commons, due to its occupants. The plebeians sat on their hands in glee as the autocrats destroyed the discredited remnants of the Roman Republic and purged its self-serving and self-aggrandizing representatives and benefactors.
Isaiah, among other Hebrew prophets, spoke extensively about this moral failing (i.e., Isaiah 59). Yet, not of peep about this pervasive societal evil can be heard from Moore, who purports to represent the prophetic minority, unless in reference to Donald Trump and other conservative Evangelicals.
A true prophet does not play favorites.
*** End of Part Two ***