Field Note 1.4: After The Map Burns

Truth, Power, and the Post-Truth State

In the last Waypoint, we asked some questions about knowledge — and what knowledge really is. In a democratic society, we need something more than opinion. Otherwise, when deciding what the right thing to do is, we’re left with nothing more stringent than: “We can agree to disagree.” Elections then hinge on bright lights, big rhetoric, and deep pockets. Or worse — big guns.

No — the word knowledge should carry a higher standard than opinion. They aren’t synonyms. And when we use the word knowledge, we should have a good sense of what we mean by it.

Now, given the meditation of Waypoint 1.4, “The Map Is Not the Mountain,” one might think the view expressed flirts with relativism. But I assure you, it does not. This isn’t relativism. It’s anti-authoritarianism — and yes, I believe that’s an important distinction.

Some might find it surprising that a theory of knowledge has anything to do with democratic or authoritarian structures. But it does. The careful reader will have noted a hint of perspectivism, especially in the quote from Marcus Aurelius: “Everything we see is perspective, not truth.” Of course, Aurelius wasn’t a relativist — he believed that truth was out there. I’m less a man of faith than the emperor, but I can hike with him at least as far as the word perspective.

To see why this matters, consider the example of a fundamentalist — especially timely in an era where populist politics have allied themselves with Christian Nationalism, and where the wall between church and state grows ever thinner. The fundamentalist often makes grand claims: that his holy book is the Word of God Himself. 

Maybe it is. I don’t know that it isn’t.

When the compass breaks, you learn to walk by the terrain.

But the fundamentalist must concede: that is his opinion. He cannot step outside his own skin — no more than I can — to verify his truth by some divine vantage point. And because of that, his claims can carry no more civic authority than any other run-of-the-mill assertion. A pluralistic state cannot rest its laws on faith-based declarations, because many intelligent people within that state do not accept the divine authority of that book.

So what, then, can elevate one claim over another? If no one can step outside their own skin, how can we ever agree on what counts as truth?

This is where the line from the last waypoint — that knowledge is “a certain something that works” — becomes important. Before we can call something knowledge, it must prove itself.

“Nothing is ever true because a book or an authority says so. A thing is true because its implications pan out — and nobody has ever found good reason to reject it.”

In a democracy, when someone asserts a claim — especially one with public consequences — that claim must be testable by others. It must stand up to scrutiny. If someone says, “Because the laws of inertia are thus, we must have speed limits,” we can examine that claim and evaluate its implications. It isn’t “true” because a book says it, or because a president declares it. It’s true because its implications pan out — and because no one has found a good reason to reject it.

Knowledge, then, is not a possession granted by gods or inherited through institutions. It’s something earned in the open — in dialogue, in testing, in shared reality. And that, at its core, is a deeply democratic idea.

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