The Truth is not the Truth
Four days after the election of Donald Trump, sales of 1984, the dystopian novel written by George Orwell, rocketed (Note 1), and it became a No. 1 bestseller. Clearly people were unsettled by the election of an obvious demagogue, and the puzzling resonance he found in democratic America. What may also have prompted this interest was the immediate manipulation of facts, which took place. For example, there was the extraordinary claim, made by his press secretary, Sean Spicer, that Trump’s Inauguration crowd was the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe”. Photographs showed that this was demonstrably false – the audience was relatively small – but the lie was compounded by a subsequent interview with Trump’s advisor, Kellyanne Conway, when she asserted that this description was true, it was simply “alternative facts.” (Note 2). …Read More