Two Lies Don’t Equal the Truth

Three things that are certain in today’s world: death, taxes…and gaslighting. Our Elites lie to us so much that anyone with commonsense knows to doubt the veracity of anything they claim.

The gaslighting reaches into most areas of life: medicine, foreign policy, and the role of women in the Church just to name a few. I’m waiting for someone to declare with a straight face, “We need women deacons to wear masks in order to defend democracy in Ukraine!”

Lies have consequences beyond just the falsehood being perpetrated. The primary consequence of repeated lies is a breakdown of trust. We simply don’t believe Elites anymore. Of course our leaders have always lied to us on some level, but today’s lies are far more insidious. They know we know they are lying, but they lie to us anyway, because they can.

The impact of being constantly and consistently lied to weighs heavily. The victim of such gaslighting begins to question everything, and in an effort to combat the lies, he may even begin to accept alternative lies as a defense against the mainstream lies. He becomes reactionary, disputing solid history, morality, and facts in order to oppose the Elitist gaslighting.

Sadly, there’s been a marked increase in this reactionary spirit among traditional and conservative Catholics in recent years. In fact, accepting these alternative lies is often lauded as being “based.” Instead of being committed to the truth, some Catholics have become committed to reactionary opposition, even to the point of accepting and promulgating falsehoods.

The most obvious example is the increased call to question the Holocaust. Instead of outright denial, it is typically presented as an innocent historical question: How many Jews were really killed in the Holocaust? But the implication is that the number is far less than the often-cited 6 million number, and by disputing the official number, the effect is to downplay the gravity of the Holocaust.

When pushed, often these reactionaries will argue that they are actually concerned with the narrative that formed after the Holocaust, in which any and all Jews were now immune from any and all criticism. By questioning the facts about the Holocaust, they hope to question what they see as a harmful narrative that elevates one group to an unquestioned status.

I ran into another example of this reactionary spirit just last week, to my surprise. I discovered that there are Catholics today who argue that there was no sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. While they admit there were some cases of abuse, they say that the scandal was overblown by the anti-Catholic media. Like the questioning of the details of the Holocaust, the purpose of questioning the reality of the crisis is to oppose the damaging narrative that came out of the crisis, namely, that the Church is an evil institution that can’t be trusted.

I’ll give one more example to illustrate this trend; one that is less damaging but expresses the same mindset. There’s a growing faction of traditional and conservative Catholics who dispute that man ever landed on the moon. Their most common defense of this view is that the same people who pushed false Covid narratives in the name of science also claim we landed on the moon. So again, we see that a historical fact is challenged not strictly for historical reasons, but to oppose a gaslighting narrative that exists today.

I bet that many reading this article think that I’m exaggerating the support for these views, and perhaps I am. It’s always hard to gauge how much social media chatter translates into real world views. After all, nearly 100% of these arguments are made by anonymous accounts, and these sentiments could be amplified by bots seeking to create division and/or monetized engagement. But based on sizable anecdotal evidence, I suspect that this reactionary mindset is growing among traditional and conservative Catholics, particularly among young men in that demographic.

As I noted already, there’s a common theme in all of these examples: question a commonly-accepted narrative in order to fight back against an accurately-assessed abuse of that narrative:

• We’re not allowed to criticize the actions of Israel or any Jewish figure? Deny or at least diminish the Holocaust.
• The media uses the abuse crisis to undermine the Church? Deny crisis ever happened.
• Elites push “The Science” to grab control of our lives? Deny the scientific possibility of a manned moon landing.

The problem with this type of reactionary thinking is that it creates a false binary; it’s a comic book world where there are only two extremes—one good, one evil—in any issue. It ultimately rejects critical thinking, for rational thinking recognizes that reality beyond the binary.  The problem with this type of reactionary thinking is that it creates a false binary; it’s a comic book world where there are only two extremes—one good, one evil—in any issue. It ultimately rejects critical thinking.Tweet This

It can be true that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and that the narrative created after the Holocaust led to immunity for Jews committing evils. As Catholics we can accept and decry the horror of the Holocaust while also working for the conversion of all Jews to Catholicism. We can recognize the dangers of Zionism while also condemning Nazism.

It can be true that there was a horrible sex abuse crisis in the Church and that the media used it as a stick to unfairly beat the Church. As Catholics we can acknowledge the evil of abuser-priests and complicit bishops while also defending the divine institution of the Church (and her hierarchy) and proclaiming that salvation is only found in her.

It can be true that man landed on the moon and that many secularists use scientism, not science, for political reasons. As Catholics we can be amazed at the great engineering feats like the moon landing, while also fighting against dangerous ideologies masquerading as science.

A Catholic must be a critical thinker, evaluating fact claims not through a lens of “Does this help my side or harm my enemies?” but instead based on the veracity of the claims, regardless if the truthfulness of the claim is later abused by partisans. We rightly resist when people fall for the lies of the Elites and the mainstream media, but we must be careful not to react by falling for alternative lies. 

As traditional and conservative Catholics, we need to oppose the reactionary “based” Right. It’s a difficult challenge, because often such views are gnostic in nature and defended by illogical emotionalism. Any argument for the veracity of a mainstream historical view is met with “You just believe what They want you to believe.” The based crowd will spend hours nitpicking the details of a historical statement like “6 million Jews were killed” or “We landed on the moon,” but will present little proof to back an opposing view. They revel in their secret knowledge of history, one which you only know if you watch this 4-hour YouTube video or read this 1,200-page book. And when you refuse to accept their bad arguments, they just call you a boomer. Any attempt at rational argument is met with scorn and derision.

The response to the Leftist extremism which is based on lies isn’t an opposite extremism also based on lies. The Catholic response is even more extreme: critical thinking which leads to a total acceptance of the truth, even when it is used for our opponents’ evil narratives. You won’t be called “based,” but you will be faithful to Jesus Christ, who is the Truth. Falling for lies from either camp is ultimately a form of groupthink and laziness and should be rejected by all Catholics.

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