Information overload

"Everybody's talking at me, I don't hear a word they're saying, only the echoes of my mind." (Harry Nilsson 1969).

With the progress in IT in the past two decades or so there have been real advances in the availability of information of all kinds. Much of this has been beneficial and educational: the truth is harder to hide now than ever. Access to the media has become more democratic in most places, so governments or individuals can't conceal the truth just by muzzling the traditional media and silencing journalists.

However, there has also been such a massive rise in mis-information, dis-information, obfuscation and downright lies that the net result is actually more confused than ever before. To defend themselves mentally, many people now only listen to sources that they trust and they refuse to hear the truth coming from elsewhere. It's impossible to hear and weigh all points of view. There's a plethora of FB posts, and tweets and blogs (like this one) out there, to which many of us subscribe, and it's great that we can all get to express ourselves like never before. But -- hey  -- who's listening? We're all talking past each other simultaneously without any mutual engagement most of the time. It's is a real sign of our culture -- we all want to tell everyone else what to believe.

Wierdly, in today's world of sound-bites, rhetoric is possibly even more important now than it was in ancient Rome or Greece. And the rules are unchanged. Despite all our information technology, the "performance" of candidates in televised debates appears to be the thing that wins or loses elections.
  The truth is precious and I find there's an emotional response to it. It's so satisfying when you hear a reasonable, balanced presentation -- even when you don't agree with the conclusions. Conversely, it's a really galling feeling when you know you are being lied to, or that that invalid, unbalanced mis-information is going out to people and you can't do anything about it.

Part of our problem, in the western world at least, is that for millennia we have validated and embraced an adversarial approach to debate and decision-making. First you present your one-sided view of a thing, with little regard for balance: then I try to demolish your argument and to discredit you, with equally little balance and absolutely no mercy, much less charity. That's how our courts work. That's how our parliaments work. That's often how businesses work. Many broadcasters work that way. It's supposed to be fair if both sides get opportunity to present their arguments.

A lawyer or politician who always presented the whole truth openly would not last very long. They're not even supposed to be fair. Fairness is a lost value when it comes to argument -- "all's fair" in order to win the point.

It is said, with some plausibility, that everybody has a bias and the best we can do (in broadcasting for example) is to state our viewpoint and then go on to present things as we see them ...with litle or no regard for other points of view, since others must speak for themselves. But is that not simply justifying injustice? Permitting and even institutionalising a merciless, uncharitable approach to how we speak and write?

Personally, inwardly I'm screaming "ENOUGH !" The fact is that this approach is just systematic, institutional dishonesty, which we've made respectable. We're effectively saying that it's ok to present only one side and not even try to find the whole truth. I feel disrespected and demeaned by people who do that. And it's a sin against truth, perhaps the most basic sin of our society.

In the present tide of information we need much more than one-sided presentations that are mutually contradictory and incompatible. Thesis and antithesis don't form a cohesive synthesis in people's minds unless we are helped to synthesise fairly. There needs to be a seeking after truth, an embracing of the whole truth even when it's unpleasant or uncomfortable. The truth is always our friend -- anything else is unreality.

Much as I long for it, I am not very hopeful that we will ever see much communal seeking for truth in our broader society: the trend will always be away from this, because any one person's adoption of an extreme position, forces others to adopt the opposite extreme, just to restore balance. So adversarial debate will always be part of our fallen world.

But whatever about our social culture and society more generally, there is much less place for the adversarial approach within the church. Suppose there is a practical issue facing us, like the qualifications required for ministry or something of the sort. If we are not trying to reach out together, side by side seeking for God's way, then we are forced to take up positions on opposite sides, like opponents rather than brothers and sisters. 

We are supposed to speak the truth in love. Any community needs to foster trust and we need to trust one another with a full, balanced view of issues that arise. We need the humility to see that we are not the real arbiters of truth --  God is. Jesus said: "I am the way and the truth..." and so we need to seek Him together and try to discern His will for all of us. His priority will always be love.