Welcome to Newspeak: "Truth isn't Truth"
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 10:11 pm
In 1950 Akira Kurosawa made the groundbreaking movie Rashomon. It tells of an encounter recalled by 4 different people. All four have different recollections. The film was a great treatise on the subjective way that we experience reality.
Perhaps Giuliani was trying to channel Kurosawa today when he said "Truth isn't truth." But you have to admit, for a man who spent a good deal of his life as a prosecutor, it is a rather strange statement to make. Rudy is right in the sense that different people have subjective recollections of what happened. But that doesn't mean that something did not happen. And what happened is reality. And trying to sort through conflicting recollections to determine what happened is what the whole investigative process is supposed to be about.
Sorry to keep bringing up Res Ipsa's signature, but this seems to be a situation that points exactly at what Ms. Arendt was trying to say. Interesting that Trump referred to Nixon's White House counsel John Dean as a RAT.
And it is right here, at the intersection of personal loyalty and loyalty to the United States, where the President conflates the two and can't understand why anyone who works in the White House, including White House Counsel, could say something damaging. I think he has a hard time differentiating between personal loyalty to the man who is President and loyalty to the Office of the Presidency.
I can't wait for Sarah Huckabee Sanders tomorrow.
Perhaps Giuliani was trying to channel Kurosawa today when he said "Truth isn't truth." But you have to admit, for a man who spent a good deal of his life as a prosecutor, it is a rather strange statement to make. Rudy is right in the sense that different people have subjective recollections of what happened. But that doesn't mean that something did not happen. And what happened is reality. And trying to sort through conflicting recollections to determine what happened is what the whole investigative process is supposed to be about.
Hannah Arendt wrote:The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
― The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Sorry to keep bringing up Res Ipsa's signature, but this seems to be a situation that points exactly at what Ms. Arendt was trying to say. Interesting that Trump referred to Nixon's White House counsel John Dean as a RAT.
Trump's Inaugural Address wrote:At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America. Through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
And it is right here, at the intersection of personal loyalty and loyalty to the United States, where the President conflates the two and can't understand why anyone who works in the White House, including White House Counsel, could say something damaging. I think he has a hard time differentiating between personal loyalty to the man who is President and loyalty to the Office of the Presidency.
I can't wait for Sarah Huckabee Sanders tomorrow.