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The New Reality: Teaching Truth in an Era of Manufactured Doubt
Two decades after the phrase ‘reality-based community’ emerged as a slur, teaching truth has become an act of resistance. Here’s what educators can do.
The 2024 election came and went like a fever dream, leaving a troubling question: What happens when reality becomes negotiable? As someone who has spent decades working in education and journalism, I’ve watched with growing concern as the boundaries between fact and fiction have blurred into a haze that obscures our democratic foundations.
The most unsettling aspect isn’t that lies spread — that’s nothing new. What’s new is how sophisticated the machinery of deception has become and how willingly we’ve accepted its presence in our lives.
Twenty years ago, I read a quote that still haunts me. A senior Bush administration official told journalist Ron Suskind that those outside this emerging order were in “what we call the reality-based community.” He described this community as those of us who “believe that solutions emerge from [our] judicious study of discernible reality.” His next words sent chills down my spine: “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
