IDEN A: How the devil does the big lie survive in the face of so much contrary evidence?
IDEN B: In the recent movie about FDR (Bill Murray), FDR tells the King of England that people want to believe their view of the world, not to have their views be disturbed by reality. We have made some progress. The public seems to be getting used to politicians having affairs. Some people can handle conspiracy theories (e.g., the movie JFK), but my sister and her husband say that if JFK was killed by a conspiracy, the world would fall into chaos. Nothing could be believed. There is a fear of conceptual instability. It seems that small lies can be refuted, but big lies …. not so easily. Perhaps truth needs to be dispensed in small doses. Too much overwhelms people. And everyone has a different tolerance for information that disconfirms their present conceptions. What to do? Well, one answer is to not challenge the big lie. I suspect this is where the media are. Why risk loosing access to news sources and giving one's competitors an advantage?
IDEN C: Another way of looking at this is place-related. It may be that the truth — and the ability to discern, appreciate, and leverage the truth — has to be a bottom-up campaign, one town hall, one neighborhood, at a time. Trying to transform an entire nation or government in the face of very well-funded resistance is futile — tilting at windmills. Find one village, and help it shine….the spike theory of change.
