Upper School Ethics teacher, Tim Leet.

This feature is the third in our “Faculty and Staff” column—new to our paper this year—and to which all staff, administrators, and faculty are welcome to contribute views of their choice.

It’s hard to talk about politics at school. We’re not very good at it, and strong emotions often simmer just below the surface. One careless remark and we risk being buried in a volcanic lava flow. It’s safer to limit ourselves to shared whispers with like-minded friends. Safer still to steer clear of the topic altogether.  Unfortunately, playing it safe by avoiding the topic cannot be the answer now.

You may know that one of the President’s closest advisors used the term “alternative facts” in defending a claim of the new administration.I suspect she regrets it, given the withering tweetstorm that followed, but I’d like to linger over that phrase a little longer. The reason for lingering is not to bash the speaker but to use the moment to highlight some common ground that we can discuss without anyone getting scorched by lava.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that our faith in the objectivity of facts has been shaken. After all, nearly every analysis of “the facts” prior to the election failed to predict a Trump victory.

Facts seem more slippery than they used to, and our times have been called the “Post-Truth Era” by more than one writer. Ours is a time in which facts and truth have been replaced by data and spin. As someone who teaches both physics and ethics, I find this suggestion both mistaken and dangerous.

To be clear, people can and do disagree about how facts are interpreted.  For example, you and I can disagree about whether it’s warm outside. We can disagree and both be right because warmth is an interpretation.  The actual air temperature, however, is a fact. If it is seventy degrees outside and I claim that it’s sixty, mine is not an “alternative temperature.” My temperature is wrong.

The President’s advisor found herself in an impossible situation when asked to defend why the President and the Press Secretary repeatedly claimed the size of the crowd at his inauguration was larger than any in history. It was an impossible situation because crowd size is like temperature.  There is only one correct answer. Her appeal to alternative facts was an absurd play that must have made even her most steadfast supporters cringe.

To some readers this probably sounds like yet another unfair attack on our fledgling administration. To others it sounds like further evidence that we made the wrong choice in November. My purpose here is neither to attack our new leaders nor gloat over their missteps. My sincere purpose is to remind us what is at stake when our belief in facts and reason is challenged.

President John Adams wrote, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Our interpretations bend left and right, but the facts do not.  We all must protest when facts are bent in service of “wishes, inclinations, or passion.” Whether happy with the new political direction of our country or not, we all must champion reason and truth. If facts thwart a political agenda, we must not allow those facts to be hidden or redefined. We must insist that our leaders face facts, however unpleasant or inconvenient.  And, frankly, so must we.

Truth should give rise to sound governing policies, not the other way around.  If we reverse the order of that formula, truth ceases to be truth and becomes propaganda.  Our country’s founding documents enshrine the authority of reason and a deep suspicion of collected power. This is a vital piece of common ground we share as Americans. We can talk about this. We must talk about this. And then we must ask whether talking is enough.

by Tim Leet