Near the end of Joseph Henrich’s great new book on human evolution, The Secret of Our Success, I was stopped cold by this:
[L]anguage has at its core a rather serious cooperative dilemma: lying, deception, and exaggeration. Lying with language is cheap, at least in the short term, and is a potentially powerful way to exploit and manipulate others. The more complex a communicative system is, the easier it is to lie or shade the truth, and get away with it.
Remind you of anything? Today’s media certainly form a “complex communicative system”—one that Donald Trump has mastered and plays expertly to his advantage.
A bit of background: Henrich is challenging the standard view among anthropologists that the advent of language was the key event that enabled our species to dominate the world. Part of this challenge is pointing out the inherent problems with language. He continues:
If this cooperative dilemma is not addressed, the evolution of language…is rather limited. The reason is straightforward. If others are using language to trick or deceive me, I can avoid this by not believing anyone or even by not listening to them at all. If, to avoid being manipulated, everyone stops listening, then there’s no reason to try to communicate. Language will go away or remain limited to those situations where deception or manipulation are too difficult.
Henrich goes on to argue that what made language a usable tool was the evolution of social norms against blatant lying—norms that Trump casually and cheerfully discards.
Even Trump’s supporters probably know he lies a lot. They know, but they don’t care. They feel they’ve been lied to so much by the mainstream media and establishment politicians that “truth” becomes whatever feels right to you, and Trump’s story about America going to hell definitely feels right to them. And if anyone tries to tell you a different story, just put your fingers in your ears and say “La la la la”.
This relates, of course, to the general breakdown of trust in America. Sociologists tell us that a key predictor of the success of a society is the overall level of trust people have for each other (outside their immediate family or tribe). Starting 40 years ago, Republicans taught us not to trust the government, or the media, or the academy, or science. Now Trump is cashing that check, averring that we can’t trust anybody…except him. Because “only he” can solve the problems of uneducated white Americans. Trust him!
By essentially disabling any productive use of language in politics, Trump has made it impossible for the media or anyone else to effectively disarm his toxic juggernaut. We’re often told that the media simply aren’t equipped to deal with someone like him. This is why.