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George Orwell once said, “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” That was a theme of his famous 1984. Some thought, perhaps, that he was exaggerating in order to make his point, but his prediction seems more realistic in our time of “Fake News” and “Alternative Facts”. Finding the truth has always been difficult, (personally and collectively), but it does seem to be a particular problem today. Think of the ‘swamp’. Think of present political claims and promises. Think of a lot of social relationships. Think of advertising which is all deception. Truth is elusive everywhere.

Add to that, as Dorothy Sayers has said, “that there is nothing you can’t prove if your outlook is sufficiently limited.”  An entirely valid fear, therefore, as time goes by, is that increasing deception and public ignorance will further dilute, as Orwell fears, the “concept of objective truth”, and more falsehoods “will pass into history.”  It is an ominous prospect that does seem to be a very present danger.

But it would be a shortsighted and dangerous error to limit this to contemporary politics and to one political party or another.  The smog is not new and it is everywhere. The matter is not just a passing ruffling on the surface of our culture, not just threatening winds of graft and corruption blowing in from other countries, but a deep and broad shifting of historical currents beneath flowing away from our cherished revolutionary ideas towards 1984.