The Social Construction of Confusion
How the West Lost Its Grip on Reality
In the Soviet Union, the word pravda (truth) had lost its original meaning. Educated people would say it had undergone a process of resemanticization. Pravda referred to the official version of a fact—an unquestionable narrative, regardless of whether it corresponded to reality.
To speak of the search for the essence of reality, the word istina was used. This term referred to a more intimate, personal dimension: the deep quest for human nature.
A basic defense mechanism against abuse is to retreat into a world of fantasy, into a space of safe intimacy. This psychological response was a consequence of the hysteresis into which Soviet society had fallen, driven in part by the impossibility of questioning authority and the passive resignation to its consequences.
Today, the West is experiencing the effects of a similar process, stemming from an epistemological principle that has spread through academia and transformed truth into the outcome of a social process—a social construct.
I do not doubt that certain beliefs throughout human history have emerged as products of social dynamics. Most of the superstitions that have afflicted human communities are the fruit of the imagination of shamans or priests, born out of the need to sustain fear of the divine and the supernatural in our primitive ancestors.
At times, these beliefs were imposed by violent conquerors seeking to force their culture upon the conquered and justify their own supremacy.
Such phenomena have little to do with truth itself and much more to do with the structure of human societies—phenomena that were especially widespread in the past.
When we learned to measure the world and observe reality through the lens of reason, many of these beliefs were swept away—along with the conviction that survival depended on the benevolence of some mysterious authority. Humanity emerged from the state of minority imposed by superstition, which Kant invoked to explain to his contemporaries the meaning of Enlightenment.
In recent years, however, constructivist epistemology has turned back the clock, reviving the strange belief that knowledge can be produced solely through the internal dynamics of human society—often disregarding the constraints imposed by reality and reason.
The revival of rhetoric, in new and often bizarre forms and outside the context in which the technique originally emerged, is one consequence of the adoption of constructivist epistemology. Political activism, to which intellectuals across disciplines now seem compelled to devote themselves, is another unfortunate outcome of this mindset.
The most damaging consequence of truth understood as a social construct, however, lies in the realm of communication and the media. The belief that truth can be constructed within social dynamics has transformed the analysis of facts, the dissemination of information, and public discourse into a continuous clash of opposing viewpoints—viewpoints that often disregard reality and stem more from the narcissism of those seeking to win than from the curiosity of those seeking to understand.
The information crisis in the West is, at its core, a direct result of this very attitude.
A striking example of this approach to truth can be found in those peculiar debates so popular in the United States, where a single speaker faces off against twenty opponents—say, a conservative against twenty progressives, or a Democrat against twenty Republicans.
I can hardly imagine anything more pointless than watching such a debate.
The purpose of these confrontations is clearly not to engage with facts or to propose strategies for dealing with complexity—which, properly understood, is the aim of rhetoric. Rather, the goal is to narrate a version of the truth and impose it on the audience, often by merely discrediting the opposing viewpoint.
The assumption behind these debates is that something meaningful might emerge from the collision of divergent perspectives. But confrontation is of little value if there is no shared agreement on the facts—or worse, if the facts are ignored altogether.
I believe the time has come to leave behind the unpleasant epistemological habits of recent years and to accept that truth cannot exist independently of its relationship with reality. Perhaps such an acceptance will help us temper certain forms of fanaticism.
How do we fix this? Four simple words: Buy my damn book
Zombies of Marx on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1DBJ96C
In the Soviet Union, the word pravda (truth) had lost its original meaning. Educated people would say it had undergone a process of resemanticization. Pravda referred to the official version of a fact—an unquestionable narrative, regardless of whether it corresponded to reality.
To speak of the search for the essence of reality, the word istina was used. This term referred to a more intimate, personal dimension: the deep quest for human nature.
A basic defense mechanism against abuse is to retreat into a world of fantasy, into a space of safe intimacy. This psychological response was a consequence of the hysteresis into which Soviet society had fallen, driven in part by the impossibility of questioning authority and the passive resignation to its consequences.
Today, the West is experiencing the effects of a similar process, stemming from an epistemological principle that has spread through academia and transformed truth into the outcome of a social process—a social construct.
I do not doubt that certain beliefs throughout human history have emerged as products of social dynamics. Most of the superstitions that have afflicted human communities are the fruit of the imagination of shamans or priests, born out of the need to sustain fear of the divine and the supernatural in our primitive ancestors.
At times, these beliefs were imposed by violent conquerors seeking to force their culture upon the conquered and justify their own supremacy.
Such phenomena have little to do with truth itself and much more to do with the structure of human societies—phenomena that were especially widespread in the past.
When we learned to measure the world and observe reality through the lens of reason, many of these beliefs were swept away—along with the conviction that survival depended on the benevolence of some mysterious authority. Humanity emerged from the state of minority imposed by superstition, which Kant invoked to explain to his contemporaries the meaning of Enlightenment.
In recent years, however, constructivist epistemology has turned back the clock, reviving the strange belief that knowledge can be produced solely through the internal dynamics of human society—often disregarding the constraints imposed by reality and reason.
The revival of rhetoric, in new and often bizarre forms and outside the context in which the technique originally emerged, is one consequence of the adoption of constructivist epistemology. Political activism, to which intellectuals across disciplines now seem compelled to devote themselves, is another unfortunate outcome of this mindset.
The most damaging consequence of truth understood as a social construct, however, lies in the realm of communication and the media. The belief that truth can be constructed within social dynamics has transformed the analysis of facts, the dissemination of information, and public discourse into a continuous clash of opposing viewpoints—viewpoints that often disregard reality and stem more from the narcissism of those seeking to win than from the curiosity of those seeking to understand.
The information crisis in the West is, at its core, a direct result of this very attitude.
A striking example of this approach to truth can be found in those peculiar debates so popular in the United States, where a single speaker faces off against twenty opponents—say, a conservative against twenty progressives, or a Democrat against twenty Republicans.
I can hardly imagine anything more pointless than watching such a debate.
The purpose of these confrontations is clearly not to engage with facts or to propose strategies for dealing with complexity—which, properly understood, is the aim of rhetoric. Rather, the goal is to narrate a version of the truth and impose it on the audience, often by merely discrediting the opposing viewpoint.
The assumption behind these debates is that something meaningful might emerge from the collision of divergent perspectives. But confrontation is of little value if there is no shared agreement on the facts—or worse, if the facts are ignored altogether.
I believe the time has come to leave behind the unpleasant epistemological habits of recent years and to accept that truth cannot exist independently of its relationship with reality. Perhaps such an acceptance will help us temper certain forms of fanaticism.
How do we fix this? Four simple words: Buy my damn book
Zombies of Marx on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1DBJ96C
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