It seems that nearly every bit of information we receive these days is hearsay, or more bluntly, a lie. I think most people do not believe that a lot of the things they hear, or read in the news, are out-and-out lies.
In fact, a distinction needs to be made between conscious and intentional lies and things that are simply not true. Once we make that distinction, we find that most of what reaches us belongs to the latter category.
That fact changes things only a little bit. False information is still false. And the falsity or truth of any information remains the responsibility of the conveyor. If I tell someone something I am not personally certain of, I typically qualify the statement with “I think this is true,” or “this is what I heard,” or “so-and-so said this, not sure if it is true.”
Although I must admit that, realistically, I do not say this as often as I should. If I did, I would almost never make an unqualified statement—unless I had literally experienced it: “It is raining outside; I was just out there, and I am soaked.” That’s not hearsay, but if someone I told that to repeated it to someone else based only on my statement, then it would be hearsay.
Most everything we tell people, or even take in ourselves, is hearsay. The term is typically defined as anything learned that does not come from the person experiencing it directly. Which is nearly everything. In a world where trust has gone out the window, how is it even possible to grapple with this fact? It isn’t. So what do we do? Not much.
I think if we continue to be aware and make every effort we can to vet every bit of information that comes to us, with the resources available, that is about all we can do. Will we always be correct in our conclusions? No. Will we be close? Not necessarily. It is an educated-guess-crapshoot.
What we can be pretty sure of is that the other side of humanity—the ones we used to call sheep—will do no such thing. They will continue to babble on about the people they worship and how trustworthy those people are, and how the information they convey is all truth, all correct, and all essential to understanding the world.
What is so frustrating about this is that some of it might be right. Hell, all of it could be. Who knows? It’s all hearsay.
I’ll say it again: shrews (do you know yet who the shrews are?) are more likely to be correct. Even though we, too, are subjected to propaganda and hearsay, we make an attempt to dig beneath the surface far more than the sheepsters do—at least the ones I know.
For one example: I have read dozens of books on Russian history—ancient (Russian history doesn’t really have an “ancient” component), Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet. I know a bit about Russia. I also read and listen to the “experts” in our current culture who know quite a bit of Russian history.
Still, all hearsay. All history is hearsay. But it is probably more accurate than the crap the mainstream media invent about Russia for their handlers’ own benefit. Sure, what I know may not be true; in fact, much of it may be at least a bit inaccurate. Yet it allows me to form an opinion that is more than just the latest offering the agenda feeds me.
Both sides of any argument will believe they are correct and that their information comes from a reliable source. It is clear to me that only one side is likely to be closer to the mark. The other relies too heavily on unvetted information from agenda-driven sources.
The deeper problem is not merely that we are swimming in second-hand claims. It is that most people have lost the capacity—or the willingness—to treat information as provisional. They treat it as identity. Once a narrative is absorbed, it becomes part of the self. To question it feels like self-betrayal. That is why the sheepsters dig in so hard. The information is no longer about the world; it is about who they are. Challenge the claim and you challenge their belonging.
Shrews live differently. We know the ground is soft. We know every source has an angle, every expert a blind spot, every historical account a selection of facts that could have been arranged another way. The point of reading the books, of listening to the dissenting voices, of cross-checking the timelines, is not to arrive at certainty. Certainty is a fantasy reserved for the faithful. The point is to keep the psyche from hardening into dogma. The effort itself is the discipline.
There is a cost to this posture. You live with more ambiguity than most people can tolerate. You become slower to speak and quicker to qualify. You watch friends and family treat provisional stories as sacred texts and realize there is little you can do about it. You also notice, over time, that the people who never vet anything still manage to feel more certain than you do. That certainty is not knowledge. It is insulation.
Yet the alternative—accepting whatever is served—is worse. It turns the mind into a passive receiver of whatever power structure is currently loudest. Hearsay becomes gospel simply because it is repeated often enough and by the right people. History shows how quickly that process can turn lethal.
The only modest safeguard is the one we already have: the stubborn, imperfect habit of checking, of reading past the headline, of remembering that almost everything we “know” arrived second-hand.
We will still be wrong a good deal of the time. That is the human condition. The difference is whether we stay conscious of the uncertainty or pretend it does not exist. One path keeps the door open to correction. The other nails it shut and calls the darkness light.
