Multiple things can be true at once

Becvar is the executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, which houses The Fulcrum.

Last week, the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers convened a summit in Denver. It was a gathering marked by a sense of camaraderie among peers, juxtaposed with an acute awareness of the challenges posed by the upcoming November election. The stakes for our field, the nation and the global community have never felt higher. Yet, as we departed from the summit, I felt ready to face whatever complexities 2024 might hold.

Then, while waiting for my plane to take off, news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's death reached me. Rather than dwell on the geopolitical consequences, my thoughts turned to the inevitable polarized reactions I predicted to see on mainstream and social media. True to form, platforms quickly became battlegrounds for narratives, casting Navalny's struggle within the binaries of U.S. politics. This dichotomy overlooks the complex reality of Navalny's legacy, both as a critic of corruption and as a figure with contentious views. The rapid oversimplification of Navalny's life and work into binary political narratives challenges us to acknowledge that multiple truths can coexist.

The Navalny reporting underscores a broader issue in our media landscape, exemplified starkly by the divisive coverage and polarizing discourse surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine.

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This week, AllSides evaluated coverage of a study published on Feb. 12 analyzing 99 million individuals vaccinated against Covid-19 worldwide. The study'sfindings were often relayed as a reduction of complete information into partisan talking points. The essential details, such as the comparative risks of health issues from the vaccine versus the virus itself, are lost in a sea of polarized content, demonstrating the difficulty in achieving a balanced understanding in today's media environment.

As we move towards the 2024 elections, a significant danger to our democratic processes lies not in specific parties or ideologies but in a declining trend in information literacy. The oversimplification of complex issues for the sake of engagement and clicks erodes our collective capacity for informed discourse. This environment enables conflict profiteers to muddy the waters of truth, making it challenging for the public to discern fact from fiction.

Hannah Arendt famously wrote in her essay “Truth and Politics” that the essence of truth-telling is lost when we lack a non-political standpoint from which to interpret the world. Historically, the press, scientists, artists, judges and historians have provided perspectives that anchored a common reality. Today, as communities across the U.S. grapple with crises that erode common understanding, it becomes evident that embracing the complexity of truths is vital for preventing division and fostering unity.

The American Values Coalition highlighted one of those communities, East Palestine, Ohio, which has been facing a loss of community, as well as independent and non-politicized facts, surrounding the train derailment that occurred there last year. Reading their story, it again stands out to me that in East Palestine, multiple things can be true at once and, by acknowledging that, their community can help prevent them from dividing against each other into false binary narratives that cannot possibly capture all that has happened.

As members of the Bridge Alliance and advocates for healthy self-governance, we must champion the cause of nuanced understanding and resist the allure of oversimplification. We can counteract the forces that seek to divide us, building a more informed and resilient democracy and a shared commitment to the common good.