As a magician’s audience suspends its disbelief, in Australia’s parliament you aren’t allowed to call someone a liar. But in the real world people say it out loud; they don’t trust politicians. That’s depressing, particularly in the middle of an election campaign when voters are about to exercise their democratic right.
Aristotle had his doubts about democracy. He knew persuasion – the language of our politics – has a much lower evidence bar than the rigorous logic used in science; you can persuade people merely by “seeming to prove” a truth. Fast-forward to the US political strategist James Carville’s boast: “Truth is what you can make the voter think it is.”
