True Enough?

            In the book titled True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, Farhad Manjoo attempts to investigate how modern day technological advances have shaped the sort of free-for-all society we now live in.

            Manjoo’s writings begin with the story of Eliza Jane Scovil. Eliza was taken to the doctor with what was presumed as a common cold. They treated her per usual for a child her age, having no idea that Eliza’s mother, Christine Maggiore was HIV positive since 1992. Manjoo writes, “Maggiore had come to accept the unconventional views of a sets of activists who argue that HIV does not cause AIDS” (Manjoo 10). This being said, once Eliza Jane had passed, her mother denied the fact that AIDS was a leading cause. Despite the denial, the child’s body underwent an autopsy, and the examiner most certainly ruled that AIDS took Eliza Jane. At this point in the book, I was wondering where Manjoo could possibly go with this idea until he continues to explain his thesis for us:

“The death of a little girl in Los Angeles may not look immediately germane to the thesis of this book: that the limitless choice we now enjoy over the information we get about our world has loosened our grip on what is—and isn’t—true,” writes Manjoo. “What killed Eliza Jane, then, was not only a disease but more precisely the lack of notice and care for a disease—a denial even, that her condition existed. What killed her was disregard for scientific fact. It was the certainty with which her parents jettisoned the views of experts in favor of another idea, their own idea, far removed from observable reality. It was a willingness to trade in what was true for what was merely true enough” (Manjoo 12)

            In the last sentence, it is seen what he is getting at. Our society is tricked into believing things that may in fact be partly true, but there is no effort that is put into personal beliefs. It is almost as if we develop our so-called morals and virtues throughout our childhood, being heavily influenced by our surroundings, and then they are set. The way we receive information once our beliefs have been established is classified by Manjoo as “selective perception”, a process in which filter out what we don’t necessarily believe in within a story and simply extract what we feel is pertinent.

            As the book continues, Farhad Manjoo runs with the idea that our society, as a whole, has the option to believe whatever we want, and in some cases this freedom is actually so widespread that there are multiple truths to every instance. He looks further into the Swift Boat Veterans and the John Kerry scandal, Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Bush’s reelection, All in the Family, Apple and Microsoft debates, as well as other examples of how we consider truth whatever we want it to be. Most relevant to myself and other Americans though, Manjoo discusses the incidents that occurred on the dreadful morning of September 11, 2001.

            However, as you read the book and begin to buy into his theory that society often is tricked into false truths via manipulation of reality. Manjoo’s points make readers start questioning what lies they could have potentially been living through, and a sense of trust is lost. Immediately, a reader then initiates distrust in the exact words being read. What if Farhad Manjoo is using the same psychological strategies he talks about in his book to in turn color the evidence and literally write a whole entire book of lies. According to Manjoo, this is acceptable because although it may not be entirely true, it is True Enough.