The Reality-Unreality axis
Our reading of a country’s politics is usually based on the relationship between Left, Right and Center. In recent years we lament the threats that the Center faces, we worry about its survival, we note the rise of extremes, and so on. But what happens when the horizontal Left-Right axis is not the only one, when there is also a vertical one, which ranges from Reality to the Unreality of myths, lies and fantasies. Politics and society now function in a new, uncharted environment, whose dangerous consequences are already affecting people’s lives. Last week showed how difficult it has become to achieve a minimum of consensus between political rivals about what is true and important.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a pre-election gathering on July 13 is a moment in which a real, very serious event justifies the conspiracy theories and lies of many years. Reality is interpreted on a distorted basis, as if it changed place on the axis. In other words, the bullet which grazed Trump’s ear bestowed upon him the glory and legitimacy of a warrior, something that he did not possess. Also, Trump’s “miraculous” salvation leads to his “deification” and further justification in the eyes of his supporters. His trials and convictions were already dismissed as a conspiracy by evil rivals. For his friends, his actions, state institutions, the victims’ experiences, are judged solely on the basis of what they (his friends) wish to believe. Even though the former president’s speeches, his comments posted on social media and his political allies’ “manifesto” reveal details of a well-planned assault on institutions, rights and freedoms if he returns to power, this program is not the subject of the political contest: his supporters are not interested in the essence of the issue but in their leader’s triumph, as if we are living in the time before politics.
The irony is that although we are not in an age where information is limited and dependent solely on those in power, today’s glut of information, opinions and lies on the Internet and social networks leads to another kind of blindness. Citizens can choose the parameters of the world in which they wish to live. They can seek the broadest possible range of information, or they may simply confirm, with ever greater fanaticism, what they already chose to believe. And so, many people (from various political sides) are trapped in a comfortable “reality” that is theirs. It is as if they are supporters of a team that does not play with real rivals or for real results, but only in their own world, where victory is the only acceptable result and defeat the product of vile rivals or system failure. Seeing how billionaire owners of technology giants, such as Elon Musk, support Trump, we can see how easily people can be manipulated, trapped in a fake world in which their actions have real results – such as losing freedoms themselves, rather than just scrapping those of people that they don’t like.
Artificial intelligence and the spread of fake news and images lead to a world in which we will have even less faith in the possibility of mutually acceptable truth. The drama playing out in the United States today, the clash of two very different concepts of politics and power, is relevant to all of us. There we will see if institutions can function or whether it is inevitable that we sink into a world in which we cannot know what is real and what is not.
