These Times

‘The Lightning,’ the internet and opinions

Kirk Ericson | Apr 18, 20240

“In 1858, three days after the first Atlantic [telegraph] Cable connected New York and London, The New York Times asked if the news would become ‘too fast for the truth.’ ” — From the book “Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington”

“Too fast for the truth.” That phrase should be stamped on every cellphone, tablet and laptop sold in this country. It could read like this: “Warning: This product is too fast for the truth. Wait before forming an opinion on information presented.”

Before you think, “That’s not practical” or “That’s nanny state government” or “You’re so stupid,” I checked. There’s plenty of empty space on the backs of those devices to accommodate those 17 words.

A cautionary stamp on our devices might have little effect, much like the warning on laundromat washers that tells people, “DO NOT put any person in this washer.”

I’m teasing, but the point remains: We humans have been coping with devices spewing truth and lies for a long time. The internet is only a souped-up version of the telegraph, and whatever comes next will be a souped-up version of the internet.

This moment in the 6,000-year span of human civilization is not facing something altogether novel with the internet — it’s only a faster and more accessible version of what came before. The fundamental benefits and drawbacks remain.

Let’s look at how the telegraph — nicknamed “the Lightning” at the time — played out in November 1860, according to the book “Lincoln on the Verge”:

“On November 6, the Lightning struck quickly. Only four years earlier, it [the telegraph] had taken up to 10 days for some remote sections of the United States to learn the result of the presidential election. In 1860, Lincoln’s triumph was absorbed in one night. But as the news spread; a second wave of false stories followed closely. The New York Tribune reported that “gigantic” rumors were spreading like a prairie fire through Lincoln’s Springfield, already fearful for its native son. It was whispered that Washington, D.C., had been set ablaze; slaves were rebelling in Virginia; Jefferson Davis had declared independence for Mississippi; James Buchanan had resigned the presidency; blood was running down the gutters of New York City …

“Slave owners did their best to distort the news. To their slaves, they told lurid tales of a monstrous Lincoln, a cannibal, ‘with tails and horns,’ who would ‘devour every one of the African race.’ … A sexual hysteria simmered close to the surface, as Republicans were accused of embracing ‘free love, free lands, and free Negroes.’ Northern newspapers were not above hysteria, either: the New York Herald warned that “hundreds of thousands” of fugitive slaves would come north if Lincoln won, specifically to consummate ‘African amalgamation with the fair daughters of the Anglo Saxon, Celtic, and Teutonic races.’ ”

And so it goes. This desire to twist information into whatever shape we desire continues to this day. We take some simple fact, such as Lincoln wins election, and mold it into whatever opinion we find conforms to what we already believe. Facts be damned. I do it. We all do it.

The fact about twisting facts, though, is some people twist facts more than others. It’s like lying. We all lie, but do you lie a little or a lot? And the critical question these days is, do you get your “facts” from sources that twist facts less or more than other sources?

It’s hard to be accurately informed, especially when we’re expected to have opinions on so many developments these days. One matter that surprised me during the plague was how many people without fancy medical degrees had become experts in epidemiology and the technical aspects of how RNA vaccines work. It’s amazing how much you know if you just apply “common sense.”

On primary election day in 2022, I spent an hour sitting outside the county administration building in downtown Shelton so I could watch the drop-in ballot box. I had a chat with a woman, and she told me she didn’t trust the verdicts of our elections. I disagreed.

“We each have our own beliefs,” she said in response.

“That’s true,” I replied. “But we shouldn’t have our own facts.”

“But we do have our own facts,” the woman said. “And that’s why we have our own beliefs.”

And so it goes …