Here’s a hypothesis and a modest proposal: I’d say that truthful information is the lifeblood of democracy. That’s got to be so, because it’s only with a grasp of what’s true that voters can make good choices when they cast ballots. Yet we are awash in lies and distortions by people in public life and disreputable media sources.
So here’s my modest proposal: Let’s come up with a sort of Hippocratic Oath for information brokers. You know, a pledge like that “First, do no harm” commitment that new medical school graduates solemnly make, only in this case it would be a pledge to tell the truth, and the oath would be taken by politicians, journalists, public relations practitioners, cable TV hosts – really, anybody who communicates with a lot of people. Taking the pledge would begin to hold people to a standard of truth-telling.
We might call it the Platonic Oath, in honor of Plato, who was a contemporary of Hippocrates. Plato wrote, “Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.” We might then ask people to take a Platonic Oath, which might be something like, “First, utter no untruth.”
Although we should note, to be perfectly accurate, that the physicians’ oath doesn’t include those precise words, “First, do no harm,” that are so often cited. A better translation from Hippocrates’ original Greek typically binds new doctors to a vow to “abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.” Imagine if we asked such folks as Sean Hannity or Marjorie Taylor Greene — or Donald Trump! — to likewise raise their right hands and swear to that standard. What, no mischief? I don’t know: Would it even make them think twice before they unleash some of their typical whoppers?
Not likely, I suppose. For starters, if a promise mattered to Trump, he wouldn’t have been twice impeached for violating his presidential oath “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” nor would The Washington Post have documented more than 30,000 lies he uttered during his presidency. And, anyway, the notion is unenforceable. The practice of medicine is regulated by the state, which we’ve authorized to revoke the medical licenses of those who deviate from Hippocrates’ standards; a free society couldn’t tolerate that kind of state intrusion into what people say or publish.
While we’re at it, though, our 21st-century Platonic Oath of truth would have to rope in the software developers who work on artificial intelligence systems, and the digital corporate titans who finance their work, too. And once you get there, you’d have to demand the Platonic Oath of business leaders and manufacturers, and all sorts of people whose integrity directly affects our lives.
We need it, though, because we’re in the midst of what’s been called Information Disorder. There was even a blue-ribbon commission studying that – for almost a year – and it published a report during the pandemic that reached this conclusion: “Information Disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises. When bad information become as prevalent, persuasive, and persistent as good information, it creates a chain reaction of harm.” That’s what it said.
Disinformation makes progress difficult on such issues as climate change; it encourages racist, ethnic and gender attacks. Viral lies, transmitted on social platforms – including those sown by hostile governments – can upset elections, threaten national security and undermine trust in our society. We see the effects of Information Disorder every day in the divisions that are tearing our country apart.
That commission concluded that while we can’t stop disinformation, we might mitigate its worst harms. It suggested perhaps compelling social media platforms to share details about their content moderation work, and maybe contribute to a Public Restoration Fund that would help fight disinformation by supporting “education, research and investment in local institutions” — that last apparently referring to local journalism.
There’s little chance of traction for that sort of an idea these days, not as long as virtually half the nation’s voters are enthralled by a man who is undoubtedly the most successful liar in the history of American politics. But like a physician using all the tools of modern medicine to attack a disease, we can individually play a role in the necessary healing by insisting on the cleansing salve of truth-telling — by those we elect to office, and by those in the media we reward with our attention.
If rejecting distortions and lies is the standard we use to decide how to cast our votes or choose our channel – that is, regardless of anything else, including our ideological bent or issue preferences – then we might begin to stamp out Information Disorder on a cellular level, until our public life is someday dominated by people who would be willing to take the Platonic Oath: “First, utter no untruth.”
Plato explained why lies so matter. He wrote, “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” It’s an infection we need to fight, in the marketplaces of commerce and media and politics, by demanding truth-telling as our bottom line.
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.