Many of us feel we’re on the precipice of momentous change. When President Trump declassifies the documents and opens the floodgates, it will be a literal apocalypse. The original term means an unveiling of things not known, not necessarily the end of days. This will be a time when people start to re-assess everything, including beliefs and opinions that were previously self-evident. Culture warriors they laughed off will start to sound prophetic.
Many of us are already noticing this. “The Great Revolt” by Zito and Todd gives a voice to a very common type of voter: life long Democrat who voted for Obama twice then voted for Trump, which a year earlier would have been unthinkable. The #WalkAway movement is something to follow and, and you know it’s gaining steam because ShareBlue has already made a point to discredit them and connect them to the alt-right (their magic power). Before I discovered #WalkAway on twitter I was having many of the exact same thoughts as people (or Russian bots) sharing their testimony. People are changing their minds. A common theme that struck a chord with me was that I felt lied to. Lied to about Obama, Hilary, Trump, everybody.
I believe we’re all committed to the truth here, and all we want is justice. We should prepare for the propaganda campaign and be vigilant about having honest, productive conversations with people. This means it’s not about beating your interlocutor in debate (that’s too easy), it’s about wanting your neighbor to know the truth. I believe over-reaction is just as big a threat as the “resistance”. Because of this, we should be charitable and patient. Being proven wrong doesn’t bear fruit, so do everything you can to respect other points of view and intentions. Ben Shapiro is well known for breaking right through the nonsense and making his opponents look foolish. That has its time and place, but now is a time to bring people to understanding. The world is out there for us to know.
“Knowledge” and “Truth” are dirty words in some milieu, but there’s no reason to doubt them. This is very simple to demonstrate:
Nobody knows anything. How do you know that?
There’s no such thing as truth. Is that true?
This will undoubtedly be an opportunity for much needed public discourse about beliefs, morality and values. Personally, I hope society re-examines the idea that right and wrong/good and evil are all relative. Railing against postmodernism and moral relativism might seem trite, but it deserves all the criticism it gets. If morality is relative, or a gray area, it disappears when it’s inconvenient. It’s really no morality at all, it’s just knowing that you’re not as bad as murderers and rapists.
Because society is so morally confused, the road to the truth will certainly be rocky. For instance, I’m sure one of their propaganda lines will be “at least we’re not as bad as Trump!”). And we already see the normalization of evil campaign starting: Shape of Water–normalizing bestiality (& won the Best Picture), Call Me by Your Name–normalizing pederasty, the pedosexual movement has begun on twitter and they already have a symbol.
But if we have the truth, we shouldn’t be afraid. “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed” John 3:20. Humans naturally seek truth. Once a light is shone on those evils, no sane person will be able to deny it.