A Sip of Malbec and a Crisis of Truth

Scott Astrada, NLC Washington DC

Part of a series entitled Spirited Discussions. When talking about policy these days, is it possible to do so without a glass of wine in hand? This series will attempt to add some spirit to current political and cultural books. By exploring the history behind each book — where it fits in history, and where it fits within current culture and politics — this series will summarize and explore new non-fiction and fiction within the context of culture, race, and politics.

Similar to a pairing menu — reading can be enjoyed in the time it takes to have a drink.

The Trump Presidency has led me to a unique personal insight: there is a direct corollary between my wine consumption, and the time I spend on twitter.BecauseI am part of the ever-shrinking list of people who have not been blocked by the Tweeter-in-Chief, I signed up to get push notifications for his account. Needless to say, this has driven my wine buying up threefold (see graph below). As the graph shows, after a few hours, wine loses its ability to make it all better. A particularly busy tweet day put two bottles of soul soothing Alamos Malbec under my arm on the way out of Safeway, followed by a walk to a local bookstore. With my usual slow walk around the familiar shelves, I found the perfect pairing for the wine: “The Trouble with Reality” (abbreviated “TWR” going forward), by Brooke Gladstone. Ireturned home and opened the first page of the book, along with first bottle of Alamos, and poured my first glass. This wasn’t a random choice of wine. The Malbec is best paired with TWR because this bold, dry red will relax and calm you as you start a book on truth under the Trump Administration. In addition to the seasonal reasons, the warmth of a bold red wine is sometimes better than a blanket, the medium-long finish of the wine is a great contrast to the ephemeral nature of an unending flood of tweets, each seemingly dissolving into the next one without pause. A bold red, with hints of cherry and blackberry, with a medium finish is a great reprieve from the dizzying tide of allegations of #fakenews. It slows things down. And at around $12 a bottle, you can easily pick up one (or two) and buy TWR for under $50.

Opening the Bottle: First Impressions

After opening the bottle and allowing myself the pretentious move to smell the cork (of a $12 bottle of wine) I first detected the strong smell of berries, specifically blackberry, and hints of other faint unrecognizable spices. At odds with the subtle wine, reading the first couple of pages of TWR is more like jumping into an unheated pool in October. The first question presented by TWR is what is the role of truth in today’s world of fake news and meme-driven political opinion?With the Trump Administration’s recent policy statements and actions denying climate change, casting a group of political asylum seekers from Central America as an actual threat to U.S. national security, or praising Fredrick Douglas as if he were still alive (and many many other examples that might require a premature pour of a second glass), it is difficult for those of us trying to figure out where the line is between tyranny and incompetence to get our bearings. I am not alone, at least I hope, in feeling that the whirlwind of tweets, laws, and statements that resurrect (or remind) us of the historical obstacles to obtaining civil rights and equity are overwhelming, and many times force me to actively fight off cynicism and burnout. TWR goes on to capture a big part of why these social media tweet storm driven policy narratives have such a big effect on me, and I assume on many others searching for a way to gain some footing on how to keep the resistance going.

First Drink: First sip. A long finish of blackberry and cherry, with subtle notes of pepper

I enjoy the lingering taste of the blackberry. The taste lingers well into the first few pages of TWR. Just enough pages to hear the author’s warning: we are experiencing a crisis of truth! I don’t read this in a philosophical or abstract way; I am talking about, at the very core, the idea of truth as the foundation of the policies and laws that define the world around us, and for generations to come. Gladstone insightfully starts her brief book with the premise that “[r]eality is personal”, and “[…] facts, even a lot of facts, do not constitute reality. Reality is what forms after we filter, arrange, and prioritize those facts and marinate them in our values and traditions.” In an era of climate change denial, to take the most obvious example, how does this point fit in with our discussion? Does this acceptance of individualizedreality prevent or propel critical dialogue? TWR goes on to make a case for the latter by taking the next step after recognizing that reality is personal. This next step creates an obligation to wrestle with, and seek out, the limits of our world view. The recognition of personal reality (bias), is coupled with the subsequent responsibility to test the limits and assumptions of our personal reality.

Gladstone compels us to consider that “[..]any sincere reckoning with reality demands that you strain, violently, against the natural, lifelong limitations of your umwelt (emphasis in the original).” Umwelt, a term as unpronounceable to me as the word Bordeaux (wine), is the idea that different animals living on the same patch of earth experience completely different realities. These different perceptions create an additive whole that provides a common starting point for different, and sometimes contrasting interpretations about the same “patch of earth”. TWR defines the actions of the Trump Administration along these lines, and that by disputing the very idea of shared consensus of common reality, Trump has short circuited the engine of democracy. Gladstone goes on to conclude the book with ways of “Recovering Reality” which is a chapter that singlehandedly justifies the purchase of the entire book. Many of the methods of “recovery” are the anticipated answers to the questions raised at the beginning of the book: dialogue, critical thinking, and faith in democracy are the best weapons against tyranny. Yet, one the biggest takeaways in the “recovery” section is the need to critically analyze our own assumptions, as a means to spur democracy. However, this self-reflection cannot be a substitute for speaking truth to power. Power requires resistance to keep it from becoming tyranny. For TWR, Gladstone explores the interpersonal space of this resistance, the reality that needs to serve as the origin of dialogue.

Second Drink: Drawing out the subtle flavors

Now would be a good time for a refill, and for some cheese if you have some. To draw out additional hidden flavors in the wine, blue cheese works great, or, for the those that prefer cheese that does not smell like gym socks left in the back seat of your car all summer, some goat cheese and honey. In a similar fashion, to draw out more subtle ideas from TWR, I want to briefly pair it with three books chosen strategically to further explore the different notions of truth, and our relationship to it, that are most relevant to this discussion to try to get a better handle on just what it means to say truth is in crisis.

Postmodernism: The foundational text of Postmodernism, at least as accepted across English departments across the country, is The Postmodern Condition by Jean Francois Lyotard. As a postmodernist he writes as if he is already on his third bottle of strong liquor. He defines postmodernism, generally, as “incredulity toward metanarratives.” Ultimately, this “incredulity” is a critical analysis of the social narratives that present themselves as truth, but mask a dark and colonial history. This straightforward statement is something many of us take for granted these days, but it was the driving narrative for many critical theorists, poststructuralists, and post-colonial thinkers. While the notion of critiquing totalitarianism predates postmodernism by centuries, this unique notion of “truth”, as the means by which a metanarrative can legitimize sometimes barbaric and immoral behaviors and social norms, forces us to reconsider what is at stake with the call for more truth. And what can happen if this call is hijacked by authoritarian regimes. As a result, under this framing of truth, more data and more facts are not only ineffective in a debate but can actually confirm skepticism to the point of halting any debate or compromise. This is captured later on by Lyotard in the book: “[t]his is how legitimation by power takes shape. Power is not only good performativity, but also effective verification and good verdicts.” (I have to find out what he was drinking when he wrote that!) More straightforward, Lyotard expands the notion of truth to encompass not only the ability of a metanarrative to define what is good and bad, but also what can be considered relevant or irrelevant when truth is being determined, and what is the proper verification of truth when it is claimed. The idea of truth then is a function of a metanarrative (rather than a status) to organize, label and define ideas and people. We can easily see how this type of “truth” can be a hinderance to equity, especially when considering who has control of what gets to be included as relevant in the search for truth.

Data and Discrimination: Turning to Thomas Sowell, “truth” takes on a different definition in Discrimination and Disparities. For Sowell, truth is meant to cut through the spin and narrative that is based on the objectivity of data: “[n]umbers may also be misleading, not because of any intrinsic defects in either the numbers themselves or in the words describing them, but because of implicit assumptions about the norms to which those numbers are being compared […].” Here “truth” is meant to cut down qualitative narratives based on data being offered to justify policy decisions and solutions. We should take Gladstone’s advice here about testing the limits of our world-view by exploring Sowell, a disciple of Milton Freidman and free market economics, and his use of data to surmise that racial discrimination cannot account for the majority of the black/wealth and education gap, racial unemployment inequities, and housing discrimination. He heavily critiques many federal programs and policies that many of us in the civil rights community view as victories in the fight for justice. While I disagree with many of his conclusions, there is something to be said for working through his ideas (with the help of Malbec, of course).

Orwell and Language: Orwellian “truth”, as noted in Christopher Hitchens’ Why Orwell Matters, is opposite the notion of Postmodern “truth” that is steeped in academic complexity: “[..]for Orwell, a common language with accepted and mutually understood rules was an indispensable condition for an open democracy […]. Furthermore, the commonly understood notion of Newspeak [from 1984 War is Peace/ Freedom is slavery/ Ignorance is Strength], is not refuted by the vast and complicated paradigm of academic critical theory lingo, but rather “[w]hat one needs is a pure speech that means what it says, and that can be subjected to refutation in its own terms. This will very often be an old speech, organically connected to the ancient truths preserved and transmitted by literature. (emphasis in original).” The best example of this can be drawn from Orwell himself, in one of his most widely read essays, Notes on Nationalism, draws out a clear and precise distinction between a patriot and a nationalist. For Orwell, a central aspect of a nationalist (as opposed to a patriot) is “defining oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interest, whereas patriotism is a “devotion to particular place and particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force it upon other people.” Orwell spends much of the discussion defining the nationalist as one who prioritizes nationalist sentiment over facts, is obsessed with power and military expansionist policies, is unable to see “resemblances between similar sets of facts” and possesses a capacity to approve of the most atrocious acts committed by his “side”. Here the straightforwardness of language is the best tool to expose the dangerous elements of nationalism.

As we conclude and arrive at the bottom of our glasses, we see different notions of truth that are no doubt interconnected but distinct. So, what do we need more of: more critiques of metanarrative, or more tools to hold truth-sayers accountable? More data, or more critical analysis of data? More ways to combat Orwellian Newspeak? I won’t pretend that I can summarize this discussion with a discrete and satisfying answer, but what I hoped to have accomplished is to present an insightful book that sparks substantive discussion questions on the current state of truth and politics. I will end by disagreeing with one of our most esteemed forefathers, Thomas Jefferson, when he stated: Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself […].” I think this current Administration has proven that truthneeds all the help she can get. And the questions raised by The Trouble with Reality, is a great starting place to figure out what needs to be done to get started.

Next Tasting Preview: Next tasting will focus on contrasts. I will pair a whisky that is full bodied, with a hint of smokiness, with the contrasting flavor of fresh oysters. In the same vein I will discuss Hollywood and its polar opposite: Post-colonial social criticism. In particular, I will focus on the blockbuster movie Black Panther and the works of Aimé Césaire, a key author exploring the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, as well as Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary, whose works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism.

Scott is a public policy executive in Washington DC, and an NLC DC Alumni (2017). Scott has worked on Capitol Hill, in the Obama White House, and in the non-profit sector. He enjoys visiting wineries with his wife and Reo (their shiba inu rescue), and also enjoys playing golf even though he has made no real improvement in his game over the past 6 years.

References:
Brooke Gladstone, The Trouble with Reality, Workman Publishing (2017)
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, University of Minnesota Press (1984)
Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, Basic Books (2018)
Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters, Basic Books (2002)
George Orwell, Essays [incl. Notes on Nationalism], Everyman’s Library, Alfred A. Knopf (2002)