Day #48: A Casual Relationship With the Truth
So I told you I gave up facebook for 72 hours but I don't think I told you why. Not that it is hard to guess because facebook can be soul sucking. But it really came down to a meme. One of a billion covid-19 related memes, but this one had a picture of an early 20th century parade and said in its tag line people in 1918 got tired of social distancing so they took to the streets to celebrate the war's end and launched a second wave of the epidemic that killed more people than the war did. This is real, this is not a joke.
Well, it's a nice theory but the history didn't actually play out that way. Yes, the epidemic was more deadly than the war and yes, the second wave was more deadly than the one from earlier in 1918 but it had nothing to do with the war's end. The second wave started in August, the deadliest month in America was October, the war ended November 11, and the second wave wound down in December. The epidemic, which lasted over a year and had three distinct waves, the second of which was the most deadly, did kill more people worldwide than the war did. The second wave was caused by a mutation in the virus that made it more deadly and spread quickly because people were moving all over the world because of the war. The third wave, in 1919, carried that same deadly virus, but didn't spread as quickly because there wasn't as much movement.
Like I've said before, this is history I've always found interesting because I feel like I've lived with the Spanish flu epidemic my entire life, so I have done some reading on it.
Being the librarian I am, I kindly fact-checked my friend, sent her a little link to some History channel information, and went on with my day. I don't always do that, who has the energy to fact check everything on facebook, but I will about half the time, mostly because I'm interested and wen things crop up I don't believe or never saw before I will often do some quick research on my own.
The response came back fast. I won't quote it because I'm off facebook, but to paraphrase, it was, I don't care if this is fact or not, it's still super important. And then a friend of hers posted A COMIC WITHOUT SOURCES (honestly, people MAKE ME CRAZY) outlining a history of the flu with the incorrect information and some correct stuff.
It was the "I don't care if it's true" part that got me. Everyone is guilty of believing and passing on incorrect information. That's not a crime. But when you play fast and loose with the truth intentionally because the story suits your narrative, I get irritated as hell.
And, yep, we live in liarly times. I hate the fact that the president of the United States requires fact checking. Makes me crazy. But you know what? I hate it more when it comes from "my side," if I have such a thing. Why? Because we're supposed to be better than them. And we're not.
To me, the truth about social distancing and the 1918 flu epidemic is much scarier and much more insidious than the end of the war party like it's 1918 narrative. The truth is the main reason appropriate social distancing wasn't practiced in a widespread way in the fall of 1918 is two fold. First, a government concerned about their reputation in a time of war did not release correct information quickly enough. Most of us know by now that the Spanish flu isn't called that because it originated in Spain, which it didn't. It was called that because Spain, a neutral party during the war, didn't have the press restrictions of other countries so they reported on it, especially after their king contracted it. So you have a government who doesn't report accurate information during war time and in a midterm election year because they are afraid it won't play well and then when they finally do start reporting it the public doesn't believe them because they haven't got any trust in their elected officials. If that's not a parable for this time, I don't know what is. We didn't go into this with a high level of trust in any level of government and now we have to depend on them to help us figure out how to keep this thing contained. That is not an uplifting thought.
But no one is interested in the truth, I guess, or in that more complex narrative. I HATE the fact that reopening the world has become partisan. To me, that's insane. It started with the nutty protesters on the right who are just DUMB, but then the left took it up so now anyone anywhere who suggests any form of reopening gets branded with being anti-science and pro death so now you have these two extremes and they cut on party lines and once again it makes the truth hard to find and promote. So your facebook feed becomes either give me liberty or give me death (serious, wtf,) or I can't believe you would go to Lowes to get a gallon of paint, don't you know the lives that are at stake, please wear your gloves and don't even tell me wearing disposable gloves all over town isn't sanitary, you are anti-science. (My kingdom for everyone to have had a food handler's permit at some point, at least then they'd know basic glove rules.)
Look, I KNOW truth is elusive. I've probably been, in fact I know I've been, wrong on this blog at times. I can't tell you that everything I see through my eyeballs is truth, either, because it is laced with perspective and opinion and experience and lots of other things. Hard, unbiased, unmoving truth isn't possible. But things with sources and verifiable facts are, even if told from a writer's perspective.
It's been interesting keeping this blog...I haven't journaled in a really long time and not every very successfully. I think I like writing for an audience better, even if it only lives in my head, which is why I started a blog and not a journal. But then I was reading that L.M. Montgomery biography this week and she is widely known as one of the most diligent journalers of the 19th and 20th centuries. 9 volumes of her journals are available. She started journaling when she was nine. So you'd think you would have insights into her deepest darkest thoughts, but it's not true. She actually curated how she'd be remembered through her journals. She burned her childhood journals as a teenager. As an adult, when things got tough, she'd be vague in her journals, not saying things that would later be embarrassing. In her darkest years, journaling failed her completely and she gave it up for awhile. And at the end of her life when she didn't have the time or physical stamina to write like she once had she kept little scraps of paper with her thoughts to rewrite later as more complete descriptions of her days. I love the idea of making journal notes and rewriting it...it makes it clear to some people their journal is much much more than just a thing they noodle in, as though a thing you noodle in isn't by itself valuable. Anne Frank, another of the 20th century's most famous diarists, did the same thing, rewriting her diaries as she got older because she wanted to have them organized for the memoir she planned to write after the war. It must be so interesting to be a memoir writer. I've thought a lot that that would be a fun thing to try. It takes some real self awareness as well as moxie.
So I'm writing for the pretend audience in my head, trying to document this time, and getting things wrong as my own perspectives bias my writing. I know I'm not blameless. But I'm also a librarian and I like things with sources. So let's see how a facebook hiatus goes. Might make it a little easier to live in my head after a few day's break from all that noise.
Today we went to the other extreme and listened to Neil Gaiman's Fortunately, the Milk, a lovely tall tale about a dad who goes to the corner store for a gallon of milk and his story about why he was late coming back just gets more fantastical as he keeps telling it. I'm not sure how much James got but he wanted to listen through it twice. (It's an adorable children's book, the audiobook is right around an hour.) Today was kind of a downer day, the weather wasn't as good, I did not sleep at all well last night, so there was lots of I Love Lucy and not a lot of school. I also am continuing to watch that Mrs. America series, which I continue to find interesting. It helps to think of those women as TV characters with complex lives and not just historical figures. Today I started reading Anne Lamott's Help, Thanks, Wow a book on the three kinds of prayer. I like her writing and thought it might be soothing. I will probably finish it tomorrow, was going to pick it up after this but I might go back to TV. Tired brain. And I wound down the History Chicks episode I was listening to and went back to The Graveyard Book because, Neil Gaiman.
The monotony is what gets to me. The kids are having fun, they play outside, we walk, it's not a bad life at all there just isn't a lot to vary it. I like having the rhythm of library days, road trip days, that kind of thing. Every day feels exactly the same around here and it does get to you after awhile. No one I know is sleeping well, probably because no one is getting either enough exercise or enough mental stimulation. I need to find a way to break the monotony this week with some kind of new project or something. I think I have craft kits. I may break those out tomorrow. We do have to do more school tomorrow. We have a zoom meeting, joy of joys.
Today I'm grateful for television, friends, getting outside, easy dinners, comfy jammies, and chocolate.
Well, it's a nice theory but the history didn't actually play out that way. Yes, the epidemic was more deadly than the war and yes, the second wave was more deadly than the one from earlier in 1918 but it had nothing to do with the war's end. The second wave started in August, the deadliest month in America was October, the war ended November 11, and the second wave wound down in December. The epidemic, which lasted over a year and had three distinct waves, the second of which was the most deadly, did kill more people worldwide than the war did. The second wave was caused by a mutation in the virus that made it more deadly and spread quickly because people were moving all over the world because of the war. The third wave, in 1919, carried that same deadly virus, but didn't spread as quickly because there wasn't as much movement.
Like I've said before, this is history I've always found interesting because I feel like I've lived with the Spanish flu epidemic my entire life, so I have done some reading on it.
Being the librarian I am, I kindly fact-checked my friend, sent her a little link to some History channel information, and went on with my day. I don't always do that, who has the energy to fact check everything on facebook, but I will about half the time, mostly because I'm interested and wen things crop up I don't believe or never saw before I will often do some quick research on my own.
The response came back fast. I won't quote it because I'm off facebook, but to paraphrase, it was, I don't care if this is fact or not, it's still super important. And then a friend of hers posted A COMIC WITHOUT SOURCES (honestly, people MAKE ME CRAZY) outlining a history of the flu with the incorrect information and some correct stuff.
It was the "I don't care if it's true" part that got me. Everyone is guilty of believing and passing on incorrect information. That's not a crime. But when you play fast and loose with the truth intentionally because the story suits your narrative, I get irritated as hell.
And, yep, we live in liarly times. I hate the fact that the president of the United States requires fact checking. Makes me crazy. But you know what? I hate it more when it comes from "my side," if I have such a thing. Why? Because we're supposed to be better than them. And we're not.
To me, the truth about social distancing and the 1918 flu epidemic is much scarier and much more insidious than the end of the war party like it's 1918 narrative. The truth is the main reason appropriate social distancing wasn't practiced in a widespread way in the fall of 1918 is two fold. First, a government concerned about their reputation in a time of war did not release correct information quickly enough. Most of us know by now that the Spanish flu isn't called that because it originated in Spain, which it didn't. It was called that because Spain, a neutral party during the war, didn't have the press restrictions of other countries so they reported on it, especially after their king contracted it. So you have a government who doesn't report accurate information during war time and in a midterm election year because they are afraid it won't play well and then when they finally do start reporting it the public doesn't believe them because they haven't got any trust in their elected officials. If that's not a parable for this time, I don't know what is. We didn't go into this with a high level of trust in any level of government and now we have to depend on them to help us figure out how to keep this thing contained. That is not an uplifting thought.
But no one is interested in the truth, I guess, or in that more complex narrative. I HATE the fact that reopening the world has become partisan. To me, that's insane. It started with the nutty protesters on the right who are just DUMB, but then the left took it up so now anyone anywhere who suggests any form of reopening gets branded with being anti-science and pro death so now you have these two extremes and they cut on party lines and once again it makes the truth hard to find and promote. So your facebook feed becomes either give me liberty or give me death (serious, wtf,) or I can't believe you would go to Lowes to get a gallon of paint, don't you know the lives that are at stake, please wear your gloves and don't even tell me wearing disposable gloves all over town isn't sanitary, you are anti-science. (My kingdom for everyone to have had a food handler's permit at some point, at least then they'd know basic glove rules.)
Look, I KNOW truth is elusive. I've probably been, in fact I know I've been, wrong on this blog at times. I can't tell you that everything I see through my eyeballs is truth, either, because it is laced with perspective and opinion and experience and lots of other things. Hard, unbiased, unmoving truth isn't possible. But things with sources and verifiable facts are, even if told from a writer's perspective.
It's been interesting keeping this blog...I haven't journaled in a really long time and not every very successfully. I think I like writing for an audience better, even if it only lives in my head, which is why I started a blog and not a journal. But then I was reading that L.M. Montgomery biography this week and she is widely known as one of the most diligent journalers of the 19th and 20th centuries. 9 volumes of her journals are available. She started journaling when she was nine. So you'd think you would have insights into her deepest darkest thoughts, but it's not true. She actually curated how she'd be remembered through her journals. She burned her childhood journals as a teenager. As an adult, when things got tough, she'd be vague in her journals, not saying things that would later be embarrassing. In her darkest years, journaling failed her completely and she gave it up for awhile. And at the end of her life when she didn't have the time or physical stamina to write like she once had she kept little scraps of paper with her thoughts to rewrite later as more complete descriptions of her days. I love the idea of making journal notes and rewriting it...it makes it clear to some people their journal is much much more than just a thing they noodle in, as though a thing you noodle in isn't by itself valuable. Anne Frank, another of the 20th century's most famous diarists, did the same thing, rewriting her diaries as she got older because she wanted to have them organized for the memoir she planned to write after the war. It must be so interesting to be a memoir writer. I've thought a lot that that would be a fun thing to try. It takes some real self awareness as well as moxie.
So I'm writing for the pretend audience in my head, trying to document this time, and getting things wrong as my own perspectives bias my writing. I know I'm not blameless. But I'm also a librarian and I like things with sources. So let's see how a facebook hiatus goes. Might make it a little easier to live in my head after a few day's break from all that noise.
Today we went to the other extreme and listened to Neil Gaiman's Fortunately, the Milk, a lovely tall tale about a dad who goes to the corner store for a gallon of milk and his story about why he was late coming back just gets more fantastical as he keeps telling it. I'm not sure how much James got but he wanted to listen through it twice. (It's an adorable children's book, the audiobook is right around an hour.) Today was kind of a downer day, the weather wasn't as good, I did not sleep at all well last night, so there was lots of I Love Lucy and not a lot of school. I also am continuing to watch that Mrs. America series, which I continue to find interesting. It helps to think of those women as TV characters with complex lives and not just historical figures. Today I started reading Anne Lamott's Help, Thanks, Wow a book on the three kinds of prayer. I like her writing and thought it might be soothing. I will probably finish it tomorrow, was going to pick it up after this but I might go back to TV. Tired brain. And I wound down the History Chicks episode I was listening to and went back to The Graveyard Book because, Neil Gaiman.
The monotony is what gets to me. The kids are having fun, they play outside, we walk, it's not a bad life at all there just isn't a lot to vary it. I like having the rhythm of library days, road trip days, that kind of thing. Every day feels exactly the same around here and it does get to you after awhile. No one I know is sleeping well, probably because no one is getting either enough exercise or enough mental stimulation. I need to find a way to break the monotony this week with some kind of new project or something. I think I have craft kits. I may break those out tomorrow. We do have to do more school tomorrow. We have a zoom meeting, joy of joys.
Today I'm grateful for television, friends, getting outside, easy dinners, comfy jammies, and chocolate.
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