No one is an island unto themselves. We all live our lives together within a society that's held together by tenuous threads which interconnect us. One of the most cherished and claimed values of western societies is freedom of thought, and a belief the public is entitled to their own opinions and can believe whatever they want to believe. But it's only true with regards to the personal. Once we start talking about policy, we all have to have a common framework on the extent of what's inside the box called life. We first have to agree there is a box and it has six sides.
The only way the world can work is if people with differences can agree on certain fundamental truths. If we all look up at the sky, we at least have to agree the sky is blue. A belief the sky is red isn’t an “alternate fact” to tolerate and placate. It’s just fucking wrong.
Because if we can't agree on what the nature of reality is, then we can't really have a conversation which goes anywhere. And the inability to have a reasonable discussion impacts important public policies, because one can’t debate issues if some people believe two and two equaling four is fake news. We might as well be debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin with fucking martians, since that might be more productive than trying to reason with someone who uses the words of Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Alex Jones or the dipshit-in-chief as indisputable truth. To paraphrase something Voltaire once wrote, those that can make people believe nonsense, can use people to facilitate atrocities.
As part of a protest against Trump administration policies which impact free speech, including attempts to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, an alliance of theater owners are planning a nationwide protest by screening1984, Michael Radford’s adaptation of George Orwell’s novel and warning about authoritarianism starring John Hurt.
From the United State of Cinema:
On April 4, 2017, almost 90 art house movie theatres across the country in 79 cities and in 34 states, plus one location in Canada, will be participating collectively in a NATIONAL EVENT DAY screening of the 80's movie 1984 starring John Hurt, who sadly died last month. This date was chosen because it's the day George Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith begins rebelling against his oppressive government by keeping a forbidden diary. These theaters owners also strongly believe in supporting the National Endowment for the Arts and see any attempt to scuttle that program as an attack on free speech and creative expression through entertainment. This event provides a chance for communities around the country to show their unity and have their voices heard.
Orwell's novel begins with the sentence, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Less than one month into the new presidential administration, theater owners collectively believe the clock is already striking thirteen. Orwell's portrait of a government that manufactures their own facts, demands total obedience, and demonizes foreign enemies, has never been timelier. The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as 'alternative facts.' By doing what they do best - showing a movie - the goal is that cinemas can initiate a much-needed community conversation at a time when the existence of facts, and basic human rights are under attack. Through nationwide participation and strength in numbers, these screenings are intended to galvanize people at the crossroads of cinema and community, and bring us together to foster communication and resistance against current efforts to undermine the most basic tenets of our society."
Participating theaters that charge admission will be donating a portion of the proceeds to local charities and organizations, or using the proceeds for the purposes of underwriting future educational and community-related programming.
In modern politics, the very nature of trying to debate objective reality has become a multiple-choice game between differing ideologies, wherein facts are suspect and the patently absurd is given equal-time. Rationalizing deceit has given way to prettier terms like “spin.” In the middle of it all is a news media too afraid to call a lie a lie, and puppets every word spoken without analysis or commentary in a bold headline.
If no one can accept reality, there can't be any growth. People are supposed to learn from their mistakes. But in a world where existence is a multiple-choice option, there are no mistakes. There's just a bunch of people screaming at one another about how the other side is wrong or fake.