But too often the lies are directed
at the American public at-large and thus create a special problem for a
democracy based on the consent of the governed. For how are we to give our
consent if we can’t count on the veracity of the information we are relying on?
Worse yet, what if the information
we have is made up out of whole cloth? The speaker in this case is not
concealing the truth as he would be if he were lying to us. Instead, the truth
plays no role at all and he is thus free to fabricate reality as he goes along,
saying whatever suits him at the time. This is the issue that philosopher Harry
Frankfurt raised in On Bullshit.
It is “this lack of a connection to
a concern with truth – this indifference to how things really are,” that poses the greater
danger, according to Frankfurt. For it relieves us of the concern for truth
and, by extension, our ability to comprehend reality. You can exercise your
right to vote all you please, but if you can’t tell, or no longer care about
the difference between what’s real and what’s fake, your vote is meaningless.
The “consent of the governed”
becomes the sound of four words signifying nothing. We cease being the
sensible, self-governing people willing to expend the effort to discover what’s
real, and become the emotional, easily led crowd for whom image and impression
are all that matters.
