Truth and democracy in the age of digital impunity

A most disquieting phenomenon is afoot in our midst with respect to the temper and content of our public discourse: rabid intolerance, reckless disrespect for facts, the brazen embrace of falsehood and relentless, gratuitous abuse have become defining features of engagement, not by some uncanny default, but rather, an explicit policy of powerful political actors.

The weaponisation of digital technology has facilitated ceaseless generation of fake news, escalation of online hate, intensified cyber bullying, overt incitement and insolent mobilisation of impunity are some of the strategies being actively pursued to implement this policy.

Those who endeavour to observe proceedings in our online fora few days ago may have witnessed an incident which typifies the state of affairs. Under the blistering onslaught of acerbic backlash, one Edwin Dande was forced to mount a stout defence of facts which appeared to undermine the ideological underpinning of his adversaries.

To this end, he was compelled to cite his bona fides as a noted critic of the government. Implicitly, he declared that he would not renounce the truth simply because it did not square with the politics of the day, or seemed to favour the wrong people.

The furore was instigated by digital posters that had been circulating online in the social media, containing statistics which showed that the economy is stable and in a much better shape now than it has been in a while. The particulars are that the fiscal and current account deficits have declined from 8 per cent to 4.3 per cent, and from 5.5 per cent to 3 per cent respectively, while inflation reduced from 7 per cent to 2 per cent. In similar vein, the National currency has stabilised after making strong gains last year, even as reserves significantly increased. 

Indifferent to facts

The attitude of influential online commentators was dismissive, in keeping with their established strategy of profiling all official communication as unreliable, if not altogether devoid of truth. Many an analyst have been subjected to brutal calumny and ostracised for perfectly accurate, rational and factual interventions, whilst as many charlatans have found acceptance, admiration and support for recklessly propagating obvious and dangerous untruths.

This is the principle by which those interested in truth for its own sake have been systematically tormented culled and excommunicated in favour of ardent ‘bandwagonners’ and propagandists who are either profoundly cynical or indifferent to facts. Over time, our online discursive platforms have devolved into a dystopian wasteland where the intolerant become radicalised, the dishonest are affirmed and the antisocial lionised.

In any event it was abundantly clear at once that Dande would struggle from a position of gross disadvantage just to engage peaceable, let alone persuade the addled online regiments, notwithstanding the fact that he was on the side of truth.

This incident is by no means unique, isolated or infrequent. Rather, it is now a fundamental characteristic of public discourse in our country. There was a time when only incorrigible villains would propagate or condone untruths publicly and with impunity, and more often than not, deception was undertaken furtively and with stealth. Not anymore. The measure of acceptability of assertions is no longer factual or rational validity but rather, alignment with expedient political posture or compliance with ambient narratives.

Commitment to democracy

As both the institution and exercise of public reasoning, democracy facilitates our political collectivity to establish robust principles that guide all actions in aid of our material interests. The procedures by which we conduct this reasoning, as well as its substantive agenda or content, not only matter considerably but more often than not, have existential implications. It follows, then, that our relationship with the truth defines us individually and collectively, in terms of our commitment democracy.

A model of discourse under which multitudes are radicalised to the extent that they are unwilling to concede even elementary and incontrovertible facts insofar as they are politically inconvenient amounts to nothing more than irrational abuse of freedom and dangerous intellectual impunity. When accompanied by enterprises that intentionally fabricate deceptions, fraudsters and sundry untruths, such inimical exercises of freedom afford tremendous facility in inverting a society’s moral terrain, in consequence whereof the good is easily adjudged undesirable, whilst arrant malignancy is profiled as the most needful imperative.

A readiness to repudiate sound fact merely because it is attributable to official sources, and an equally exuberant propensity to accept outright prevarication, be it knowingly or with reckless abandon, on the ground that it favours, or is recommended by fellow partisans, is a symptom of this normative transmogrification.

The ensuing challenge is gargantuan: how do we proceed forwards when, on account of sabotage, it is difficult to agree on basic directions or, worse still, when vocal, visible and energetic actors deploy makeshift compasses whose points have been arbitrarily assigned?

Commitment to democracy comes with a certain discipline which respects truth as an inviolable value, and a readiness to embrace facts as the sole vehicle by which we may arrive at it. Failing this, all rational discourse degenerate into pedantic absurdity, while attempts at reasoning collapse into the most dreadful of deliriums. I wish you a rational year.

The writer is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya