Michiko Kakutani, wrote a book on, The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump. In an article for The Guardian likens our times to Orwell's Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four, with its decay of language and avoidance of the concrete, "divorcing words from meaning and opening up a chasm between a leader’s real and declared aims" in order to "assert power over truth itself."

He gives the example of Orwell's "Newspeak," which used words to mean their exact opposite, not unlike "fake news."

Also writing for The Guardian, William Davies believes that "virtually everyone" agrees "the news and information we receive is biased." He reminds us that historically, human cultures have chosen which important events to record, and blames "the explosion of information available to us" which he says makes it "harder, not easier, to achieve consensus on truth." He says that "the elites of government and the media have lost their monopoly over the provision of information," but since they are still in the public eye that have "become more like celebrities, anti-heroes or figures in a reality TV show." Social media provide "public space to identify and rake over the flaws, biases and falsehoods of mainstream institutions," resulting in an "increasingly skeptical citizenry." With so much information, "Facts and official reports are no longer the end of the story." We "pick out bite-size pieces of content" and "increasingly seek to answer for ourselves, without the help of intermediaries. This is a liberation of sorts, but it is also at the heart of our deteriorating confidence in public institutions." So, Why can’t we agree on what’s true anymore?

Kakutani reminds us that our country was founded on "common concerns," "common interests," and a "common cause." He says, "Without commonly agreed-on facts – not Republican facts and Democratic facts; not the alternative facts of today’s silo-world – there can be no rational debate over policies, no substantive means of evaluating candidates for political office, and no way to hold elected officials accountable to the people. Without truth, democracy is hobbled." 

And, Williams adds, "The financial obstacles confronting critical, independent, investigative media are significant." "An independent, professional media is what we need to defend at the present moment, and abandon the misleading and destructive idea that…the truth can be grasped directly, without anyone needing to report it.”

Let go back to Martin Luther King: “Many among our ancestors sang songs of freedom. They dreamt of the day when they would be able to come out of slavery, out of the long night of injustice (...) And they sang so because they had a great and powerful dream; but many of them died without seeing it realized. (...) The struggle is always there. We make declarations against the war, we protest, but it is as if with our heads we want to tear down a concrete wall: it seems to be of no use. Very often, while we try to build the temple of peace, we remain alone; we remain discouraged; we remain lost. Well, that is life. Though, what makes me happy is that through the perspective of time I can hear a voice crying out: 'Maybe it won't be for today, maybe it won't be for tomorrow, but it is good that it is in your heart. It is good that you try'. You may not be able to see it. The dream may not come true, but it is still good that you have a wish to fulfil. It is good that it is in your heart."

Then a woman asked him, Tell us about sorrow. He said, Your sorrow is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

As the kernel of the fruit must break so that its seed may receive the sun, so you must know sorrow.

If you could retain in your heart all the wonder at the daily wonder of life, even sorrow would seem to you no less astonishing than joy; and you would welcome the heart seasons as you have always welcomed the seasons that pass over your fields. And, you would watch serene in the winter of your suffering.

Many a sorrow are your choice. They are the bitter potion with which the doctor in you cures your sick self. Trust the doctor, drink the remedy quietly, and silently; for his hand, though rough and heavy, is guided by the caring hand of the Invisible.

The cup he hands you, though it burns the lips, has been fashioned from the clay that the Potter has bathed with His holy tears (Kahlil Gibran from his book, The Prophet)