Aristotle: you don’t hear much about him these days, mostly because most of his writings are taken as just plain obvious. You can yell at me for trying to reduce Aristotle’s entire opus to one short parable being bandied about the internet these days: it’s the one about two men in a room arguing about whether it’s raining outside. Aristotle says, “Why don’t you just go to the window and look?”
But what happens when the two Greeks go to the window, and one says, “See? It’s raining,” and the other says, “See? It’s not raining”?
If this disagreement over what the two men see is repeated over time, they will no longer go to the window to look, but will revert to their argument in the closed room.
Versions of this scenario have been occurring regularly for years. “See? Elon Musk was giving a Nazi salute.” “See? Elon Musk was just raising his hand.” “Let’s go back to our closed media to discuss whether Musk is a Nazi or not.”
Musk: Nazi salute or not?
After January 6, 2020, many people saw the videos of what looked — clearly, to my eyes — like thugs beating up policemen, breaking windows in the Capitol, and smearing feces on the Capitol walls. But no, others saw peaceful tourists, or maybe some FBI provocateurs or Antifa (You don’t hear that word much these days. Did Antifa disappear?) Trump said there was ‘love in the air’. After four years of seeing that video, the US has retreated into its closed media standoff about whether the Jan. 6 events even happened at all. We know that the evidence wins no arguments.
Across the board, every piece of evidence is denied as either politically biased or AI generated. No one even thinks about looking at evidence anymore. Aristotle has been thrown out the window.
What is replacing Aristotle? I’d say it’s blind adherence to the Great Leader. If Trump says it’s so, then it’s so. The American economy, by all measured accounts, has been the most powerful in the world, with job growth, GDP growth, and even bringing down the Covid-induced inflation. However, Trump told the American electorate that the economy sucked, prices were rising, and that they were miserable. His pronouncements were believed far more widely than the government statistics.
All economic predictions point to higher inflation under Trump’s tariffs, deportation of the labor force, tax cuts for the rich, etc. But when prices go up, Trump will brag about how he has lowered prices, and he will be believed. No one will actually go check whether the price of eggs has gone up or down. After all, a price check would be evidence — not to be taken seriously.