Perception is not more important than reality

This is a response to something I read recently.

Ivanka Trump wrote in The Trump Card, “Perception is more important than reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is fact”.  This illustrates a multi-generational issue. As far as the Trumps go, her statement fits with much of how her father campaigned and is now acting as president. It has amazed me how so many people still believe that he is truthful, even with so many sources of information which contradict his statements.  He’s even contradicting himself. Yet so many people have such a huge misperception of him. This is not a commentary about Trump. It’s about a psychological condition which he and his daughter illustrate. You can use politifact.com and other fact checker websites to see how much of Donald Trump is unfactual.  

Putting a higher priority on perception over reality is not new nor even a few generations old.  Ancient kings, pharaohs and shamans manipulated people’s perceptions. But I think that it’s nearly an epidemic today.  Every form of media has a substantial amount of fallacies masquerading as fact. We have ads making products look better or more essential than they are.  Companies make false and misleading statements about other companies. Politicians misleading and lying to the public. Pseudoscience and false medical advice abound. And general people intentionally and unintentionally spreading the fallacies.

In the early period of the internet, I was excited about the possibilities for a new method of making facts available.  Yes, we had a huge number of misleading commercial endeavors on the web. But I believed that the internet would become a great means for research and fact finding.  People probably had similar ideas about radio and TV. Now, the internet does have great resources. But there are a lot of fake facts. And I’m not talking about Trump’s spin about fake news.  I’m talking about how so many people put out so much false information.

Of course, it’s not just the internet and other media.  Heck, we have businesses whose whole model is manipulating perception.  I started this off with the Trumps rather than others who have said variations on the theme because it illustrates how we are at a critical state.  With all the means to pass on false information, it is becoming critical that we become critical of what people say. I believe that we need to turn the tables.  Make facts important again. This envelops all ethical categories. I think that we cannot be adequately ethical if we prioritize perception over reality, as Ivanka suggests.  

That’s all for now.  Until next time, get out there.