I read today about an elderly gunman, a white supremacist who went on a shooting rampage in the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum. I'm not sure what gets into people's heads sometimes, but for this man, who shall not be graced with a name here, a lifetime of being just being plain, and dangerously, wrong, culminated in this moment. I briefly attended his blog site, comprising a series of lengthy, unsubstantiated and frankly nonsensical rants against Jewish people. Naturally there were 'facts', 'undeniable facts', from memory, to support these outlandish denials and allegations.
Way back in primary school, and then again throughout high school, the difference between a fact and an opinion was drummed into me. I don't think that I could mistake the two, even in a coma. The idea of facts gets bandied about a lot in conversation. Facts are brandished as incontrovertable evidence of a point of view, and often as not when the 'fact' cannot be checked. 'I say it's a fact so it is', pretty much sums up the attitude.
When enough of these slices of hearsay, or deliberately misleading opinions, or just plain lies, get tallied up, then a prejudice starts to form. It doesn't take a lot for the haze to shape into a firmer outline, the outline into an object. The object is the now hated 'other'.
Enter the man in the opening paragraph, and many others like him. I don't see an answer in sight, I'm afraid. The high water-mark of human civilisation has passed, in my unfactual opinion. And perhaps a huge unravelling, to come.
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