The truth about Nick Gibb, history and ‘dead white men’

In 1983, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a great American sociologist and politician, wrote: ‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.’ Then the internet happened.

Anyone who has spent five minutes online, especially on a social media site, is aware that everyone now has their own facts, carefully chosen to support whatever argument or narrative they favour. Any contested issue that’s debated online (i.e. all of them) sees people on different sides of the argument adduce statistics, quotations and any other material helpful to their cause.

Take this stuff far enough and you get people prioritising subjective experience above objective fact. Oprah Winfrey captured the subjective, hyper-individual spirit of the age when she asked Meghan, Duchess of Sussex about ‘your truth’. (”How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?’)

This isn’t a good thing. I know I’m an old-fashioned MSM gatekeeper of knowledge and narrative, but I think the concept of objective facts is worth keeping; one truth, not many.