Is democracy always about truth? Why we need to loosen our views to heal divisions

[C C]

https://theconversation.com/is-democracy...ons-269038

EXCERPTS: We find ourselves in the midst of a crisis of truth. Trust in public institutions of knowledge (schools, legacy media, universities and experts) are at an all-time low, and blatant liars are drawing political support around the world. It seems we collectively have ceased to care about the truth.

The nervousness of democrats before this epistemic crisis is partly based on a widespread assumption that the idea of democracy depends on the value of truth. But even this assumption has a cost. Sadly, the democratic tendency to overemphasise the value of truth enters into conflict with other democratic demands. This leads us into contradictions that become fodder for the enemies of open societies.

[...] But do we really need truth to share a reality? In practice, most of our experiences of shared realities are not involved in truth. Think of myths, neighbourly feeling, or the sense of community, perhaps even religion and certainly the ultimate shared reality: culture itself. It would be hard to argue that we share in our community’s cultural reality because our culture is true or because we believe it to be true... (MORE - details)
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The radical socioeconomic equality that the classic far-left sought, now combined with the quest for a multicultural utopia, is by its very nature going to entail having to surrender various areas of truth in order for those conflicting societies and population groups to integrate with each other. These aims are the secular world still being perversely obsessed with achieving its own version of the paradise that religious beliefs promise.

[Syne]

Humans are not capable of surrendering their perception of truth... often even in the face of clearly contradicting evidence.

[stryder]

(Okay some driving analogies popped up in this)

The unfortunate state of (pseudo)democracy is having a loud minority of brainwashed (The ones that drive clown cars) telling everyone else how to live and ignoring the copacetic majority.

That copacetic majority are a bit like tail gaters, who occasionally overtake someone just to get overtaken again because they concentrate on competing against other drivers, rather than the destination or drive itself.

The politically unmotivated ride the Bus/Tram/Trolley/Trains of this world.

Then of course you have those that buck the trend and off road, which the loud minority and majority likely think are completely bonkers, but at least they are living and concentrating on what objectives they should be (such as the destination and quality of drive)