Ayn And Hannah – The Transylvania Times – The Transylvania Times

In todays paper, readers will find an Opinion of the Readers entitled Atlas Shrugged, in which the author compares some lines from Ayn Rands book, which was published in 1957, to today.

While there may well be elements of Rands novel that appear in society today, the two references cited present a fictional antagonism toward journalism and facts a disingenuous and dangerous proposition.

Both the characters and comments made by them are fictional. They are not factual reports of what journalists said or did in 1957 nor today. In fact, these fictional comments are, generally speaking, the opposite of reality.

In the second reference, Rand writes that reporters were young men who had been trained to think that their job consisted of concealing from the world the nature of its events and to sling together words ... so long as the words did not fall into a sequence saying something specific.

Hogwash. In reality, reporters are trained to discover and reveal, not conceal. Journalists are trained to report what happens and ask questions. Journalism focuses on specifics: How many people died in a crash? What are county revenues and expenditures? How many physicians have left Transylvania Regional Hospital? Various media, if they have the financial resources, spend weeks, months and sometimes years investigating possible stories that political leaders, corporations or others in position of power have attempted to conceal. Cigarette companies adding nicotine to keep smokers addicted and New York hiding the number of deaths in nursing homes due to COVID-19 are just two examples of the thousands of times journalists have worked to reveal specific information. More than any other form of writing, journalism focuses on facts and figures, not flowery words or descriptions. It focuses on relaying specific information.

In the first reference, Rand writes that a famous editor said There are no objective facts... Every report on facts is only somebodys opinion. It is, therefore, useless to write about facts.

These fictional statements written by Rand are preposterous and dangerous, particularly if people believe them. There are trillions of objective facts. Two plus two equals four. Apples grow on trees. Millions of Jews were killed by Nazis. Mitch McConnell is a senator from Kentucky. Those are facts.

It is foolish and anarchistic to claim there are no objective facts. If there are no facts, then there is no need to have schools, courts of law or law enforcement. If there are no objective facts, then there are no facts for teachers to impart to students and no facts on which law enforcement and district attorneys can prosecute a crime.

If people believe there are no objective facts, they become a mindless mob, ripe for manipulation. Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jewish American political theorist, foretold the real problem: If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer . . . . And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and judge. And with such a people you can do what you please.

Arendt also wrote, Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts.

This is the trademark of authoritarianism, to attack the facts. It is one reason despots and authoritarians consistently attack not just the media, but also people who are professionals or those with a great deal of experience. If there are no facts, then degrees and experience are irrelevant. There are no areas of expertise. In such a scenario, statements about crime from a city councilman, county commissioner, governor or president are equal to that of a police chief, sheriff or attorney general because the latters experience is completely irrelevant. Government officials can give lucrative government contracts to unqualified personnel often family and friends because if there are no facts, then one is neither qualified nor unqualified. The denial of facts allows cunning leaders to manipulate their followers to believe all sorts of ridiculous things.

In the U.S., this is Sunshine Week, a time to celebrate the publics access to public information, to see what some want to conceal, to make government transparent and honest. It is founded on the belief that there are objective facts, that those facts matter and making those facts available to the public is essential to freedom, democracy and civilization.

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Ayn And Hannah - The Transylvania Times - The Transylvania Times