Sometimes even a friend needs to hear that they need to have higher standards for judging the character of others.
Aristotle famously pointed out that who a person is can speak louder than what they say. He and other wide-ranging thinkers argued that one’s own personal credibility was precious: a character trait necessary to be a force for good in public discussion. They used a phrase we barely hear today: the idea of the “virtuous person.”
We can’t say the impulse is dead. Novels, documentaries and films regularly put shallow and temporizing characters on display as negative models. Drama lets us see human frailty, keeping the idea of flawed, biased and unreliable sources visible. But the information overload that is now the norm often means that the character of a source is assessed last, if at all. To cite one instance, research shows that users of the internet for medical information are less likely to weigh the source than the “helpful” information, leaving many to bogus remedies promoted by companies whose interests are more marketing than medical.
The maw of fractured conversations we now witness across media platforms distracts us from considering the quality of sources. Narratives of dramatic events can easily draw us in to fascinating details before we have fully considered whether the core values of basic honesty and moral action have been met. Right now, for example, YouTube is full of stories about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that come from individual and private sources. These are usually hopeful but somewhat dubious assessments about Ukraine from individuals, rather than straight reporting from the field. We need to be alert to the likelihood that not every assertion is accurate, even if we want it to be. People often get a free pass from us if their views and values align with our own.
In the Age of the Con, Who Can be Trusted?
As a culture, we seem increasingly slow to come to an awareness of another’s shortcuts around more rigorous investigation and fact-checking. Think of the claims that Elizabeth Theranos made for her rapid-result, all-in-one blood testing machines. We owe the initial awareness of her invention’s weaknesses to John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal. He was skeptical of the claims to investors made for the machine, and grew even more doubtful when some working at Theranos privately noted that the untested technology was capable of far less than advertised. Usually those working at a startup are as enthusiastic as the founders, hence, not very reliable if problems arise. Too much is at stake to communicate doubts. But the rare doubter within an organization who will talk may be more credible because they have placed truth higher than their own career. Like all of us, journalists must weigh the motives of a source when trying to sort out hopes from hard truths.
Personal credibility has recently received more attention in light of the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion for overturning Roe vs. Wade, the landmark court decision guaranteeing Americans a choice in whether to proceed with a pregnancy. An apparent majority now seems intent on overturning the landmark 1973 ruling. Politico released the draft copy indicating that Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett had voted with Samuel Alito to toss out the precedent. This was in spite of the fact that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett had given public testimony at their confirmation hearings declaring Roe to be “settled law.” Critics were angry that these justices had not honored their earlier views to leave this key precedent in place. Can future court nominees be trusted to act on their stated beliefs?
We need to consider the veracity of those whose who want to shape our attitudes and actions. Sometimes a friend needs to be reminded that they are putting their trust in the hands of someone unworthy of it. Several simple questions about sources are a good place to start:
Is the source in a position to know the truth or make a reasonable judgment?
Have other serious people supported the source’s reliability?
Is a person’s enthusiasm for an idea unreasonably coloring their judgment?
Can a source coherently explain their reasoning and evidence for an assertion?
And there’s one more question I find reassuring when answered in the affirmative.
Does a source have enough honesty to acknowledge not knowing enough to answer?
How did this expansive stretch of the world’s geography wither to the point where it is hard to remember that it once contained a culture of innovation?
Educators supposedly talk about “teachable moments.” We are surely in the midst of one right now, at least if we are paying attention. Two authoritarian leaders—one representing a major power, and one seemingly intent on ruining what remains of a failing nation—are displaying mistakes that inform and shame at the same time.
China, of course, is the major power. But it would be a sobering lesson for President Xi Jinping to fully comprehend the disbelief of his nation’s trading partners over the misguided decision of quarantining cities like Shanghai because of COVID. Almost nothing else so clearly demonstrates the horrors of a totalitarian state than a YouTube video of faceless and white-suited minions ordering apartment dwellers to appear on their sidewalk to be tested. The quarantine in Shanghai has been so restrictive that some are unable to get the basic necessities of life, including food. This is all in support of Xi’s “zero COVID” dictum that was meant to display China’s better discipline in dealing with the pandemic. Yet his misguided policy has turned the idea of public health upside down, making the lockdown something worse than COVID itself. Nothing says “failed government” as quick as a visual display of compulsory submission that resembles nothing so much as a mandatory morning rollcall of prisoners. To say that this policy of process over compassion has gotten bad press in most of the world is an understatement. By any national standard, China has a tiny fraction of active cases. But, of course, there is apparently no one around to tell President Xi he has made a fool of himself and inadvertently helped spread the few cases that exist. As a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Company notes, people have been desperate:
But if the wrong-headedness of the Chinese President looks farcical to the rest of the world, the unilateral military actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin are far more troubling and despotic. Putin is still nearly mute head of a long-fading superpower at risk of devolving even further. By now the story of his obsession with the idea of rebuilding a fantasy empire is well known, if also badly out of step with the way the world works in the 21st century. Invading and slaughtering the residents of a sovereign nation is why the global order changed after the Second World War. We have to remind ourselves that the senseless Russian attack is real: a murder spree in plain view of cameras from around the world. Working alone in the tomb of the Kremlin and without a free press, Putin has lulled himself into believing that no one would miss Ukraine if it became a clone of an inert Russia.
But the young democracy has given him more than he bargained for. Ukrainians have what most Russians seem to lack: a sense of personal agency, and of participation in the civil life of a messy democracy. It’s little wonder they were ready to reject being taken over by their moribund neighbor.
No One Wants What Russia Makes
If Russia is not yet a failed state, Putin’s error, along with pushback from most of the world’s democracies, will soon yield that result. Even now Russia’s birth rate is below levels that can sustain it. Many of the young and the nation’s best and brightest have moved to less oppressive countries. And Russia remains a remarkably corrupt and unproductive place, having missed chances to foster tech and progressive innovators like its smaller neighbors of Finland and Sweden. As we all know now, Russia mostly keeps the lights on by falling back on old and sloppy extractive industries like timber, oil and gas. Value-added businesses that make good things are rarer. No one wants Russian cars, appliances, audio components or computers. And many of us are less than happy at the thought of stepping on to a plane maintained by a Russian ground crew. My guess is that even the country’s few remaining and clueless allies may even be rethinking their purchases of those “jack-in-the-box” Russian tanks.
How did this expansive stretch of the world’s geography wither to the point where it can be hard to remember that it was once home to innovative arts and sciences? Instead, the aging residents that have not fled remain mostly silent and too ready to again fall for the fictions of a delusional leader.
I hope we Americans are paying attention. We have our own embarrassing parades of small-minded thinking that threatens long-held personal freedoms. But we are also at a perfect moment to witness the hubris of autocracy alongside the idealism of relatively new and cruelly-tested Ukrainian state. The twin tyrannies of Xi and Putin should remind us of just how much is at stake when small people with stale ideas seize power they have not earned.
