Opt for the better political binary: Truth or Untruth

The world's going digital. Smart phones, AI, IT... practically everything is made easy, possible at the click of something, or at the very thought of it. It's all come down to 1's and 0's—as binary as binary can get. Sadly, this can turn into an bloody infestation where binaries don't belong, like politics. With its root beginnings themselves dubious enough, this is an added insult. This binary thinking makes us magnets who have to stick to only one side based on our polarity (which we apparently can't change). It's all involuntary, you see.

It's always left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, or capitalists vs. everybody else. Neither of two groups (whichever they be) recognise any ground in between. It's like a great abyss of death. Independent inquiry always makes you from the other side, depending on who's accusing you. You either play for the home team or the other team. One is wrong, the other right; one evil, the other pure. Again, everything depends on which team you play for. If someone doesn't agree with you, you're the one with a motive. This is the stuck record that is the only conversation you'll hear most of the time. Fact, truth and their pursuit die a slow painful death.   

This magnetic effervescence, apart how some of us tend to flaunt our ideologies as best, is a bigger problem than it seems. It is our primary bias and lens. More importantly, it is our fundamental political truth—fact and truth excluded. We will believe what we want to believe because that is the only side that our polarity will allows us to. We no longer care about what is and what isn't. We make our own truth, rather our bias does. We are our own reference point for everything that is worthy in the world. We're practically living our own fantasy. 

So where does this lead to? As with any factual-truth-denying-machine-thinking, this leads to mass confusion. What we think is what we believe despite the fact that it isn't what we see, or what we ever get to see. Soon enough, it becomes our obsession and then our reality. Finally, because it's the only world we'd ever accept, we make it our reality no matter how badly it lacks basic sense. And the biggest loser: truth.

Every passionate discussion we have when the 1's and the 0's meet becomes exactly this: my reality vs. your reality. It breaks so many rules that will give even the best therapist nightmares to think about. It doesn't contain independent facts that don't bear polarities, save with the people who straddle the middle path making far more sensible political allegiances, if any. Normally, if they are the only ones who would ever perceive something,  and no one else can touch, see, experience or feel it, there's something very wrong. Though far from being loony, if they still insist and insist and insist on insisting, they're certainly getting there—fast. 

So what we do about this big fat mess? Is it unhelpable? Are the good guys done for? Is it time to hope and pray, and only hope and pray till the doom of all sense? Honnasiri says that it's your world to live in; you may as well try to keep it worth living in without breaking your neck until somebody's coming for your life and you have to.

So here's what we can do in this polarised mess.

Check the fact

Make your only binary truth.  Did it happen? Is It true? Move from 1's & 0's to yes and/or nos. They are the only two answers you should have space for. There can't be alternative truths.  

Know that everything adds up

What's common for one side to say about the other side is to allege a silent behind the scenes conspiracy against them. Conspiracies have always been difficult to prove, until they actually turn out to be true. Instead, let your data add up and speak for itself.

Be assured that someone's always listening

In a environment when people only trade charges against one another, if you are the consistent quieter voice against their tirade, you are being heard by someone somewhere. Even if you aren't somebody will come across what you said and they could, then, rethink their polar mindsets. So, keep at it, despite the stuck record. Choose your battles without breaking your neck in the process. 

Understand that your awareness needn't always match, but common sense should always prevail

Depending on who you talk to, you can be accused of being hypocritical, selective, and having a motive. This is because the people who accuse you could come from other views that they are immersed in—quite deep at times, with their heads stuck neck deep into the ground. It may take some time to match awarenesses (so pick up as much as you can on the go; human attention and interest is only wired to take so much per individual.  If you don't fully catch up on their updated awareness set, remember that verified, known fact and truth also submits to common sense.

Also read: A new kind of hypocrisy