ENEMIES OF FACT BASED DISCOURSE

In our world today filled with tragic mismatch between facts and reality, fact based discourse aimed at enhancing life, promoting love and arriving at truth has increasingly been made difficult by these people:

• Conspiracy theorists
• Wilful blind fanatical supporters
• Publishers of fake news
• Xenophobes
• Misguided executives
• Serial pathological liars
• Prejudiced investigators
• Distorters of facts, or selective sorters of facts
• Ethnic and religious bigots
• Peddlers of half truths and true lies
• Aggressive debaters
• Jaundiced and biased analysts
• Announcers of dubious statistics and fraudulent figures
• Advocates of ‘alternative facts’
• Defenders of the ego at all costs
• Money conscious ‘ministers of God
• Broadcasters of concocted lies
• Bellicose nationalists
• Lobbyists and influence peddlers
• Racist and clannish bigots
• Extremists, sectarians and chauvinists
• Those who are impervious to reason
• Those practicing political correctness
• Those intolerant of dissent and free thought
• Those who approbate and reprobate at the same time, etc.

These people throughout history have been the cog in the wheel of objectivity and truthfulness. They are the creators of cynicism and polarization. They make compromise and common ground impossible. They exalt might over right. They make the wrong majority to carry the vote. They shrink the rule of law and lower the bar of freedom and respect of humanity. In a word, these people are the enemies of life, enemies of love and enemies of truth which we are called to bear witness to. Beware of them, they’re contagious.

Sirpeter (in quest of the transcendental attribute of truth)