The War on Truth

The subject of Michelle Goldberg’s terrific New York Times column today is the newly published sequel to Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, but her main concern is that the conventional wisdom that free expression will save a society, that truth will carry the day, no longer appears to be the case. We’ve entered an era in which “truth is less suppressed than drowned out,” when “reality feels as if it’s disintegrating under the weight of digital simulacra and epistemological nihilism.” I agree. I think it’s the most challenging problem of our time.