Who owns the truth?

In a recent radio show (in Romanian) covering disinformation campaigns in the electoral process in my home country of Romania, a telling exchange occurred between the moderator and a listener. “The truth is not an opinion. Reality is not an opinion,” stated the moderator. The listener answered “Well, do you consider yourself the owner of the truth?” A remarkable response, because it sublimates a phenomenon that I have been observing and experiencing for a while. You and I just don’t live in the same reality anymore.

I live in my reality, curated by an algorithm that is intimately aware of my preferences and desires, and you have yours, directly orthogonal to mine. Beyond transforming our time into a monetizable resource, this segregation into online bubbles ensures that we cannot agree even on the fundamental facts of the reality we live in. I make my arguments and you make yours, and I come out of it thinking you’re an idiot while you think I am one.

In Romania, it’s presidential election season, so there are a thousand battles being fought at any one time over one political candidate or the other. Every candidate is a disgusting liar, a loony destined for the madhouse, and a respectable representative of the people, all at the same time. Using videos of armoured vehicles from the National Day parade two weeks ago, social media narratives claim (in Romanian) that the Romanian army is mobilising to fight in Ukraine. A false claim, but don’t let that stop you from fleeing in panic.

Evidently, this fundamental disconnect between facts and narrative is most prevalent in politics. But even debating with friends has become increasingly difficult because we start so far away from each other. If we are on different sides of the social media ecosystem, bridging the gap requires hours of clarification. Why does this happen?

The solution is to go out into the world and piece together how our interlocutors arrived at their beliefs

I’ve found that neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky best explains the causes of this phenomenon in his book Determined. Each individual is strongly, yet unpredictably affected by all their previous experiences, from childhood to the last seen news article. This means that it can be extremely difficult for people who have been consistently engaging with perfectly opposing narratives to agree even on the basic facts of reality. Add to this the psychological phenomena of cognitive dissonance and belief perseverance, and we have a perfect shield in defence of our pre-existing ideas and a sword against those of our ‘ideological enemies’.

So how do we get out of the bubble? Sapolsky offers a bitter medicine: bridging the gap requires empathy, the ability to understand and vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts and experience of others. As painful as it may be for myself, the solution is to go out into the world and piece together how our interlocutors arrived at their beliefs. Where do they come from? What media do they consume? I’ve found that calling people idiots in a resigned tone does wonders for your self-confidence, but is decidedly unproductive if you are trying to understand their point of view.

So no, nobody owns the truth. We only get to wield it – for better or worse.