It is well to begin with an axiom. As all word-lovers know, an axiom is an agreed upon truth or principle, a proposition from which starts a chain of reasoning or argument. The framers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence began with an axiom — “We hold these truths to be self-evident” — and from those “self-evident truths” proceeded to the whole of their historic assertion.
Today’s axiom, as opposed to Thomas Jefferson’s simple assertion of “self-evident” (axioms do not need to be true, just agreed upon), has to its advantage that it accords with logic and can actually claim to be a, or the, truth.
Here it is: When a state authority moves into the statutory regulation of either or both of misinformation and disinformation, it is both prudent and indeed necessary that the state and its legislators, particularly its chief legislator, know the meaning of these two central terms.
It stands to reason that if the state assumes the power to fight misinformation, that the laws which will give the state that power, must be perfectly clear on what misinformation actually, factually, and definitionally is.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is one such state authority. It has, along with a hive’s-worth of other bees in its virtue-displaying bonnet, one very particular bee about online communication and the dread perils of misinformation and disinformation. Most times it tosses out these terms as if they have no ambiguity, or as if they are synonyms (which they are not), and as if everyone is absolutely clear on the core meaning of each. This is not so.
It tosses out these terms as if they have no ambiguity
Mr. Trudeau himself backs me up on this observation. Speaking to a spellbound gathering of Ottawa university students (mainly political science students) he quite pointedly observed that he did not “do” Poli Sci when in university but — his own words — “I studied English literature, so words really matter to me. And you may call me old-fashioned, but I tend to defer to the actual definitions of words when I use them.”
He then with admirable crispness and clarity commenced to unravel and discriminate the meanings of misinformation and disinformation from each other. It was a teaching moment in real time.
Since his government has been mulling stringent laws to govern both misinformation and disinformation, it was very welcome news that Trudeau knows the difference. If a government is about to regulate communication, if it is to give itself the power to determine what is true and what is not true, what is “real” information and what is not, it is good to see the prime minister of such a government prove himself so clear as to the core terms of his own legislation.
It was even more reassuring to hear him declare himself a “former literature student,” a man who prides himself on “defer(ring) to the actual definitions of words.” This is just the kind of semantic and lexical prowess Canadians expect from a prime minister who is going to rule what can and cannot be said, what is misinformation and disinformation, what requires the state to block communications when necessary (in its view) and when to give communications a pass.
There came — alas, and however — an Oh my Lord, is this happening, moment. For having just boasted he “cares about the meaning of words,” Trudeau got the meaning of precisely those two words (a) wrong, and (b) exchanged the meaning of disinformation for misinformation, and misinformation for disinformation. It was not that he accidentally slipped on a verbal banana skin, it’s like he put it under his shoe after oiling the sole with goose fat and olive oil.
How could a “literature student” so confident of his feel and understanding of the texture and swim of words, their beautiful shadings of meaning, their richness of association on the one hand and their deadly precision — their ability to fix and boundary meaning — on the other, have got these two central terms so wrong, reversed in actual meaning … and be so wrong while speaking with the confident lassitude of an elder sage?
How could a 'literature student' be so wrong?
If Trudeau does not understand the meaning of these words, how can Canadians possibly trust his government to regulate their speech? It is an axiom that the teacher should know more than the pupils. It is an axiom that to assume competence and power to patrol the speech of others, you are precise on the meaning of words yourself.
It is also an axiom that when you boast of “caring about the meaning of words” it is not a full wisdom to give a public illustration that you do not know the “meaning” of the key words in what would be most oppressive legislation. That in fact you were “misinforming” Canadians about both disinformation and misinformation. You have voided, by example and illustration, your competence to sponsor such legislation.
National Post
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