In America we have a long-standing love affair with the advent of belief. Facts and the pursuit of knowledge are secondary to our assertions, no matter how much evidence would convince us otherwise. Instead of using words like “maybe, could, might, would”, we use stronger ones like “is, can, will, and has”. Our convictions are the backbone of the American tradition of free speech, a license that gives us the power to preach to anyone about anything we feel passionately about, despite the voice of the humble few who realize that our passions tend to cloud our judgements.
The post-truth, far right wave sweeping the country is a reaction to the postmodern leftist “anarchic knowledge” movement of the 60s & 70s. Kuhn, Foucault, Derrida, and Chomsky are just a few of many writers who undermined the certainties of science and tradition, deriving that truth is subjective from the philosophies of the past, unbidden through a generation that lived through the consequences of two world wars. While other sociological factors have contributed, such as the Fairness Doctrine widening the gap between our political parties by allowing media bias to enhance our passions, and the rise of social media allowing fake news to reach people at unprecedented rates, the reaction to the radical liberalism of the "hippy generation" may have been the strongest in distancing middle America from the fringes of our cities.
In turn, the postmodern revolution was a reaction to the rapid increase in fundamentalist Christianity which swept the nation during the early part of the 20th century, when words in formerly interpretive texts like the Bible were suddenly taken literally (oddly, this only happened in our country, not others). All the rigid thinking and oppressive lifestyles that accompanied this dogmatic wave required an equally powerful blow from the more abstract, progressive thinkers on the other side of the spectrum. Largely a product of all the threatening cults of the 19th century, combined with the strengthening of Darwinism (itself a belief in their eyes), fundamentalism was a response to all the doctrines in our society that challenged Christian belief at its weakest points. A literal interpretation of the Bible allowed for the same kind of fantastical extremism that all the cults were attracting: cults embodying religious movements like the Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witness; utopian communities like Brook Farm and Fruitlands; and new philosophies, such as Transcendentalism and Theosophy.
The origin of this chain of reactionary, chaotic belief-mutation that fertilizes our country as a breeding ground for all kinds of strange ideas, lies in the unburdening power of the first amendment. It was free speech that gave us this plague of polemic fanaticism; free speech that allowed our country to spawn all the odd cults we've seen in our short history; free speech that allowed our most charismatic leaders to send messages to our hearts that resonated with us in the most unique, freshly captivating ways; free speech that tore apart the traditional mandates that fuel a nation, stagnating us politically in the quicksand of slavery, communism and immigration; free speech, that most vital of human rights, that seems to simultaneously be our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.
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