Warning: This became much more comprehensive and long-winded than I originally intended, so don’t try to read this while holding your breath.

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”

I first read ‘1984’ at the behest of my grandmother, over 15 years ago now, and it greatly influenced my inquisitive nature, and cemented my belief that “being right” is meaningless without external evidence. We are all largely shaped by our experiences, and we all have internal biases because of it, so I never wanted to become was someone who insisted I was “right” in the face of uncomfortable or new truths.

I’ve found though that the burden of self-correction and self-awareness, is the instinct towards fairness - which I clung to in order to be “right”, all the way up until this election. I wanted to be fair, to treat all opinions with the same amount of respect, to see all sides - a virtue that I have long prided myself on, even with topics in which I held a strong opinion. Now, however, I have discovered that my grip on fairness was choking the life out of the truth. And now, more than ever, the lessons of that book feel clearer, and more relevant, than ever.

The discourse of our political structure has been infected by this false idea that each side is equally truthful, and that your political position was merely predicated on opinion. It has been framed in such a way that my opinion that olives are delicious is the same as your opinion that olives are disgusting. In reality, we are now in a world where my opinion that humans are having a profound effect on Climate Change is the same as your opinion that human-effected Climate Change doesn’t exist.

We have entered, or perhaps have always been in, a world that casts aside logic and evidence in favor of feelings. There is no evidentiary or logical reason to oppose Marriage Equality - there are emotional reasons. Other people getting married does not effect the opposition even a little bit - except now they get to complain that gay people are trying to buy wedding cakes from them. There is no evidentiary or logical reasoning to continue to fight against Abortion Rights - there are emotional reasons. If you truly wanted to make abortion unnecessary, you would concentrate on providing better sex education, contraception, and improving the Foster Care and Adoption systems.

These are emotional positions that rope a lot people into voting Republican, because their unsubstantiated feelings are echoed back to them as viable facts. The GOP has evolved into a Party whose sole road to power is to rely on emotional arguments, because emotions cannot be factually argued against. When a large percentage of your party’s policies rest upon a foundation of emotion, and not fact, you have to continue to rail against knowledge and information in order to retain that power.

It is no wonder that “liberal” (meaning “Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded.”) has become a dirty word. It is no wonder that intelligence and knowledge are now considered “elitism”. It is no wonder that our own inclination to tolerance is being used against us to say “be more tolerant of intolerance”. Freedom from ideological constraints, intellectual curiosity, and widespread logical thinking would be the Death Knell of the current Republican Party.

When so many of their economic policies and “small government” ideals rely on the casual disinterest of voters, and when so many of their social policies rely on the dogmatic single-mindedness of emotional voting, their strategy has to reinforce distrust of “liberal” media, has to further stoke irrational fears, and has to continue to rest on untruths. It preys upon the weakness of people - that voice in your head that wants to be right, no matter what. If you exhibit bad behavior, but no one admonishes you, you will continue to exhibit the same behavior - and then somewhere down the line, after years of being “right” in your own head, the GOP comes to town to say “You are totally right!” At that point, the likelihood of you then challenging your own preconceived notions plummets, and everything, even actual facts, that doesn’t agree with you is a lie. Being “right” means that you believe it, and you have anecdotal evidence that someone else agrees with you. You feel right, therefore you are right - regardless of the evidence.

Here on the left, we are nearly equally feeding into this notion that we ourselves are just as blinded, just as wrong - that our “bubble” is equally impenetrable. We are letting emotions obfuscate the truth out of a misplaced sense of dignity, when there should be no shame in defending reality. I have read a disturbing number of articles from left-leaning people, including yesterday in the NYT about 'Liberal Echo Chambers' that inspired me to write this all down, that support this idea that everyone’s political opinions should be weighed equally, without regard to their relationship with reality. We’ve painted ourselves in a corner where “right”, even with evidentiary and logical support, isn’t fair to the other side, and where there is no “right” and “wrong”, but only different opinions as to what is “right”.

So, what is the truth? Does 2+2=4, or should I calmly listen to someone insisting that 2+2=5, in the name of fairness? Should facts be conceded in order to placate the feelings of those unwilling to learn? Are we to let truth slip away in the name of compromise?

The answer is no. The lessons within the pages of ‘1984’ are plentiful, but the harshest lesson is that of what happens when you give up on the truth. Throughout the book, Winston has the truth on his side - the knowledge that the destruction of language and discourse eradicates the peoples’ ability to think critically, the understanding that his country’s isolation feeds into the system of ignorance, and the fact that 2+2=5. He knows these things, and he is right - but in the end, his grasp on truth-based resistance is loosened by the hand of blind compliance, for it becomes impossible to argue the truth to someone who proclaims “truth” to be a matter of opinion.

I am done warping the meaning of truth to allow for “fair” debate. I am done lowering the standards of what constitutes as fact to placate others’ feelings. I am done accepting half-assed excuses, unsupported positions, and willful ignorance - and I am done tip-toeing around to avoid offending those who have no interest in acknowledging reality.

Near the beginning of the book, Winston thinks “He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.” Here and now, however, making yourself heard is the only option. Silence is not necessary, and is the precursor to complacency. Apathy towards reality breeds ignorance, which would create a world where the only avenue for resistance is within your own mind.

Don’t compromise the truth, because we all deserve better than the reality of what that compromise would create.