“We must be ready to respond to those lies with facts….”.
If only that were enough, to slap some facts and truths on the table and settle the matter. Facts are not enough.
Facts don’t counter emotion, fear, or hate. Facts don’t dispel bullsh*t. Real-world facts will be answered by made-up facts. Reliable sources will be mocked, ridiculed, or slandered, with lies about the sources themselves.
Yes, we have to have facts, but not just facts. We need to answer emotion with counter-emotion. Fear with Hope. Anger with Joy. Hate with Respect and Love. Pride with Shame.
If we don’t trigger an emotional response, our facts won’t matter because they won’t be heard.
We had all the facts behind why drunk driving is dangerous. But only when MADD made drunk driving socially unacceptable and publicly shameful did we move hard to bring it down. Same with smoking in public places, like restaurants, bars, airplanes, offices. When smokers were looked upon as gross rather than cool, suave, or sophisticated, we took action to ostracize smoking. The facts helped but public rejection made all the difference.
We must be ready to respond with facts and emotion to trigger a public rejection of the culture of lying.
