The Age of Doubt

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of scientific advancement; it was the age of flat-earthers and chemtrail fanatics. It was the age of medical discoveries; it was the age of anti-vaxxers and homeopaths. It was the age of information; it was the age of Qanon conspiracies and creationists. It was the age of liberal democracies; it was the age of rising fascism. It was the age of technology; it was the age of 5G paranoia. It was the age of reason; it was the age of fundamentalist religions. It was the age of cultural creativity; it was the age of AI fakes. It was the age of humanity’s hope; it was the age of climate change denial. It was the age of plenty; it was the age of predatory billionaires oppressing the working class while cutting international aid programs. It was the age of free speech; it was the age of book banning and cancelling late-night show hosts for being funny. It was the age of equality; it was the age of MAGA racism. It was the age of feminism; it was the age of MAGA misogyny. It was the age of civility; it was the age of Donald Trump insulting, bullying , threatening, and lying. It was the age of investigative journalism; it was the age of Fox Newz spewing disinformation and propaganda.

It was an age of doubt; when old certainties were replaced by new conspiracies; when politics for the greater good were replaced by ideologies of selfishness and greed; when once-trusted institutions became subjects of paranoid fantasies; when facts and evidence became deniable in the administration’s hands; where science and reality gave way to magic thinking and pseudo-Christian theology; when once-trusted media stopped publishing news and opinions in favour of spreading ideological pap and obsequious praise of the Leader.

There was a deranged fat king with a spray-painted face and a cold, rent-a-wife queen sitting on the throne of Washington, DC. There was an evil troll sitting on the throne of Russia, controlling them. In both countries it was clearer than crystal that chaos and distrust was theirs to bring to the world and that nothing could stop them.*

This is the modern world, ushered in by new technologies that managed to connect and divide everyone at the same time, where media, politicians, and technology are all controlled by erratic billionaires aiming to accumulate even more wealth at the public’s expense, where the lines between true and false are blurred or even erased; where critical thinking has given way to conspiracies; where dissent and free speech are attacked by those who demand unquestioning loyalty to their cause; where cooperation and collaboration are denigrated in favour of uncrossable divisions and rigid polarity; where simple faith fell prey to white supremacist pseudo-Christian nationalism; where home sapiens has given way to homo stultus.**

Notes:

* The actual opening to Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

** Stultus is Latin for foolish, silly, or stupid. You know it from English words like stultify and stultification. If they are perhaps not much in common use today, maybe they should make a comeback.

I have been thinking about how doubt and uncertainty play an influential part in our modern world, although they have been with us throughout our human history. I got onto the topic while reading Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book, Doubt: A History. While she is focused on the role of doubt and skepticism in the realms of religion and philosophy, I thought about how they connect in social, commercial, and political realms as well.
There’s a huge difference between being a skeptic who seeks verification and evidence to understand an issue, and a denier who clings to faith and cultish conspiracies and accepts what supports their own preconceived beliefs and biases.
The MAGA administration officials and their influencers ideologically sow doubt and uncertainty to deliberately undermine people’s views about issues and topics so they are unsure of reality. Their leader, the Dictator Trump lies so openly, loudly, and frequently that no statement of his, no matter how trivial, can ever be treated as factual and must be fact-checked. Doubt arises about the fact-checking itself because people lose sight of what is real and what to believe in under the constant firehose of MAGA lies and disinformation. The same tactics of gaslighting, disinformation, misinformation, and lies is used by the Maple MAGA Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, in Canada, to undermine Canadians’ belief in their government and its institutions.

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