Two and a half thousand years ago, a Greek statesman called Pericles said: "Time is the wisest of all counsellors." Pericles was right – time is the one objective test we can rely on. Traditional Aboriginal culture rests on a similar belief.
What I admire about the great thinkers of antiquity, in addition to their ability to express themselves simply, is their balance – their sanity. It is comforting to know there have always been sensible people. Always will be.
Democritus, a Greek philosopher who also formulated an atomic theory of the universe, said: "Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence." That's just great commonsense. Another Greek philosopher called Plotinus said something else I agree with: "Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts." Right now, that is particularly true.
This week, The Washington Post ran a story on two young men who have made a business sitting in a room with laptops making up fake news with a wild right-wing flavour and posting it on Facebook. The more clicks they get, the more advertisers, the more subscribers. They now have a lawyer, an accountant and employees. Fake news to them is a business like cleaning windows.
Post reporter Terrence McCoy wrote: "They graduated from the University of Tennessee – [Paris] Wade in 2012 with an advertising degree and [Ben] Goldman in 2013 with a business degree – but could only find unpaid internships and ended up working at a Mexican restaurant. On weekends, they would sell water bottles at college football games, and Goldman scalped tickets. Neither thought much about politics. Raised in liberal homes, they both voted for Obama twice, but as they struggled to find better jobs, they began to doubt those votes, their college education and the progressive values with which they were raised."
McCoy watches one of the young men write a headline: "THE TRUTH IS OUT! The Media Doesn't Want You To See What Hillary Did After Losing ..." The young man said: "There's not a ton of thought put into it other than it frames the story so it gets a click." He revealed the key ingredients of their stories: "Violence and chaos and aggressive wording is what people are attracted to."
The two young men told the reporter what "works" on Facebook. Explicitly telling people to prove that they support Trump by sharing their stories works, so they do that. Neither of them is particularly religious, but their readers are, so in their writing they ask God to bless the president-elect, and that works, too. So does exaggeration: "OBAMA BIRTH SECRETS REVEALED! The Letters From His Dad Reveal Something Sinister ..." And stoking fear: "Terrorists Have Infiltrated the US Government! Look Who They Want to ASSASSINATE!!" And inflaming racial and gender tension: "BREAKING: Michelle Obama holds Feminist Rally At HER SLAVE HOUSE!" And conspiracy theories: "BREAKING: Top Official Set to Testify Against Hillary Clinton Found DEAD!"
In the last weeks of the US presidential election, fake news stories on Facebook got more hits than stories from mainstream media outlets, the most successful fake story being that Pope Francis had endorsed Trump. We are now living in what is called a "post-truth" world, "post-truth" being defined this week by the Oxford dictionary as a state in which "objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief".
For "post-truth", you can also read the word "ignorant". Plato had something to say about the dangers of ignorance: "The dangerous thing about ignorance is that a man who is neither fair nor good nor sensible seems to himself to be sufficient." Now apply that principle to the most powerful nation on earth.