Those Who Follow Are Fools, Sick & Mad Too!

Yeah. We are "going to the mattresses" inside our heads. Every day, (and it's just been days), another outrage.

We have to fall back on some basics. There are truths. There are facts. There is common sense. There is common courtesy.  There is still... Respect, Dignity, Intelligence. Liberty. Equality. Fraternity.

Peace, Love & Understanding.

The laws of physics are not going to be over-thrown. We (so far) cannot defy the laws of gravity. Mathematics still works.

We don't have to accept falsehoods. Lies. Or "alternative facts!" As Merriam-Webster recently Tweeted: "A fact is a piece of information presented as having objective reality."

Do we all still believe in "objective reality?"  

"The objective reality is the collection of things that we are sure exist independently of us. Every person is able, in principle, to verify every aspect of the objective reality. Anything that cannot be verified in this way is not part of the objective reality. The 20m tall ironbark tree in my neighbour's yard is part of the objective reality. It's presence can be verified by any person by simply looking at it, or a surveyor determining its position, by taking a photo of it etc. Moreover, the absence of the tree would imply that the tree does not belong to the objective reality."

Karl Popper reminds us that: “Knowledge consists in the search for truth… It is not the search for certainty.”

Call out the lies. Every day. Refuse to live with the lies. That road leads to madness. If we are led by a charlatan, a fool, a sick madman, (and indeed we are), those who follow are fools, sick & mad too.

Eugene Ionesco in his play "Rhinoceros," explains the process:

"University professors, students, intellectuals were turning Nazi, becoming Iron Guards one after another. We were fifteenth people who used to get together, to find arguments, to discuss, to try to find arguments opposing theirs. It was not easy...From time to time, one of the group would come out and say "I don't agree at all with them, to be sure, but on certain points, I must admit, for example the Jews...". And that kind of comment was a symptom. Three weeks later, that person would become a Nazi. He was caught in a mechanism, he accepted everything, he become a Rhinoceros. Towards the end, it was only three or four of us who resisted"