Bill Tallen

The plague on all our houses these days is loss of respect for the truth by so much of the media, by our governments, and by at least two sides in every conflict or disagreement worthy of note. Reports in both traditional and alternative media have to be held at arm’s length while we evaluate the source’s reputation for bias or (increasingly uncommon) balance. 

Do we take the time to seek confirmation from other sources, or apply other methods to ascertain accuracy or truthfulness, or are we like Mulder in the classic TV series “X-Files,” who had a poster on his office wall with a flying saucer and the caption “I WANT TO BELIEVE”? Do we exhibit confirmation bias, simply accepting what confirms our pre-existing opinions, and rejecting or ignoring everything that does not? Do we trust the experts, or our own research and common sense?

We all need a sense of proportion, and the ability to focus on key aspects of an issue and not get drawn into peripheral arguments about “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.” Mutual respect goes a long way, and part of that is understanding the difference between a liar and someone who is sincere but mistaken and open to change. 

However, if you do uncover a willful lie — a deliberate misstatement of fact that the speaker knows the truth of — then as a successful trial attorney once pointed out, quoting from (of all places) California standard jury instructions, “If somebody is willfully false in one matter, you may believe he is willfully false in another.” 

Then there are those who are too busy or too uninterested to stay abreast of events and trends that will affect them, their families, their descendants, their communities, and their nation. When they get pulled unwilling into an issue, they can too often be misled or confused, lacking context and baseline knowledge. And yet they too have a voice.

Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright who came of age in Germany between the World Wars and spent most of his life in exile as an avowed communist, was nonetheless an astute observer of political life at a time when it was vitally important. He memorably (and scathingly) wrote, “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials ... Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.”

What triggered these thoughts, recently, is my involvement in the debate regarding nuclear energy developments in Wyoming. I’ve been writing on the topic, and speaking at townhalls, based on some knowledge in the field gained from my undergraduate days through my long career with the U.S. Department of Energy. There’s too much polarization and hostility (the spirit of the times, it seems), and it’s getting hard for even well-meaning folks on both sides to find common ground and have a respectful dialogue. 

In one corner there are current and former government employees and contractors (but not me), private sector firms looking for a piece of the action, and a number of often well-meaning citizens and elected officials who get wined, dined, and “educated” by either of the prior groups and come back newly minted “experts” and proponents themselves. I’ve known a lot of all three types, over the years, and as I said in a recent nuclear townhall, I have a BS detector developed in my own government service that provides a healthy degree of skepticism and distrust, which is both necessary and unfortunate. Among several other tests of credibility in such discussions is the classic question “cui bono?” (Latin for “who benefits?”)  Simple truth is often a casualty when individuals have personal financial stakes in the outcome of a debate: jobs, consultancies or contracts, real or potential. 

In the opposite corner are citizens with varying backgrounds and relevant knowledge, a healthy ration of common sense, and a principled dedication to public safety. They may not have the degrees or the lingo, but they are not fools, have a right to be heard, and get a mite testy when they are marginalized or talked down to. 

For myself, I adhere pretty consistently to that jury instruction, and find it hard to trust anyone or any entity after I catch them in even one gratuitous untruth. Trust lost is hard to regain.