Confession is good for the soul. So here is a confession and an explanation. Facts and ideas come to a writer and sometimes he trusts the wrong thing, or makes an incorrect assumption or accepts a story that is false (passing it along). I write about this because I've made a couple of mistakes recently, and it is a wakeup call. The human mind has a tendency to bend reality to conform with given assumptions. When we lose our objectivity we fall into error. My columns are not without such errors because I operate on the basis of certain assumptions. Failing to be aware of the danger of one's assumptions, error sneaks up and bites you from behind. It is an old, very human story.
An example of one of my errors will serve the occasion. A week or two ago I stated that President Vladimir Putin's reorganization of Russia's security services amounted to a reconstitution of the old KGB under the name "MGB." That story appeared across the Internet, and I took it for granted because I am susceptible to believing that Russia is gradually reverting to totalitarianism under a KGB-dominated leadership. Am I right to think this way? I believe so, but my objectivity is potentially compromised in this regard because thoughts - even if they are generally correct as a rule of thumb - become habits and habits lead to a collapse of critical sense. It is hazardous to have a "point of view." And don't kid yourself: we all have a point of view. So what happens when this point of view meets thousands of alleged data points? Consider the swirl of information - true and false - that sweeps over the Internet day by day. You read a story that says "X" one day. Three days later you find a story that says, "not-X." Now for the punch line: As it turns out, the decree on the reorganization of Russia's security services signed by Mr. Putin this month, while increasing the power of the FSB and moving it in a "Soviet" direction, did not reestablish the name "MGB" as reported.
Much of the news that we read is incorrect. Believe it or not, some years ago, I was profoundly embarrassed when I checked a fact by looking it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica (to refresh my memory). It turned out that the encyclopedia was wrong. I was dumbfounded. All journalists know that newspapers often get facts wrong. But who would suspect an encyclopedia? And in the rush against a deadline there is a temptation to trust a source, to go with your assumptions. Look at President Bush and Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction. I can only imagine how he feels when seeing what gleeful sport his political adversaries make of the whole business. Things that appear one way at a distance are very different up close. You can even use an encyclopedia and still get it wrong. Our ideological assumptions further complicate matters since we often reject certain facts and accept certain non-facts because they fit neatly with our ideas. We all do this, and we all should be aware that we do it. This demonstrates the frailty of all human perspectives. The advantage of writing for a large readership is that you quickly find out when you've blundered, and this - quite frankly - is good for the soul (though mortifying to the ego.)
Having written one to four columns a week for more than five years, you cannot image the mental process and the extent of automation. Creation is partly an unconscious process, and the unconscious is tricky. You have a lazy moment, a lapse of judgment, and intellectual integrity flies out the window. Study the careers of individual journalists you will find many embarrassing moments. To proclaim what is true (what is "factual") is to put your neck in a slicing machine. There is a bit of humor in it, too. I once found some bad facts in source material I intended to use. I congratulated myself on avoiding a mistake and turned in the column with a fragment sentence and two spelling errors. Running from one error, you fall into three.
The big picture is what really matters, in the end. If my work is in error, here is where the error is to be found: I strongly suspect that the leaders of Russia and China are secret enemies of America. I suspect they have adopted a strategy of getting along with the United States in order to set a trap. My suspicion is based on years of study. It is based on talks I've had with intelligence experts, defectors and Europeans who tell me that a dangerous totalitarian mafia rules the East from behind a democratic façade. I admit that my knowledge of this mafia is incomplete, my formulations imperfect and my views subject to correction. But I still insist there is something to these suspicions. My strategic sense leads me to detect a basic, smoldering enmity held in abeyance since the end of the Cold War. The real facts of our time must either confirm or deny this intuition.
I admit that mine is a problematic position, and one that the Establishment has rejected. I know that reality is more complex than my ideas about it. I know that everything human is full of errors. But that also applies to those who believe that China is our "economic partner" and Russia is a harmless mess. This view ought to be questioned. It should be subjected to constant scrutiny. But it isn't, and this is because we prefer to believe in peace and not war. Yet history is punctuated by wars. The fact that my countrymen do not think of this, but think mainly of the triumph of economics over militarism, is cause for concern. That is why I take the position I do.
Admittedly, when I look at the news I am susceptible to unguarded moments when critical judgment gives way to assumption. I am guilty as charged and subject to the hallucinations of my own perspectivism. And so I must be on guard against myself. What I think and conclude should be based on facts. Even then, every fact contains within itself a tendency to exaggerate some point - by the mere fact of selection. Every good writer knows this. At the same time, however, the frailty of our thinking mustn't stop us from attempting a coherent analysis. I look at today's foreign policy situation and see the inroads China has made in our nuclear labs (as explained in the Cox Report). I see the double-edged "friendship" of Russia. I am troubled by America's trusting attitude. I am troubled when we assume that trade and profit eradicate enmity as if trade were a magic pill. I am worried when Americans assume their country is invincible or unbeatable. I see powerful arguments that are not being made. I see facts that are overlooked. And so I offer a different perspective that carries errors and dangers of its own.
It may seem strange to say, but I've taken to heart many unkind comments from critical readers because on a clear day I know enough to suspect myself. The mind is an amazing thing. We unconsciously dismiss everything that challenges our basic views, and we collect about ourselves only those items that confirm these same views. Perhaps the increasing staleness of today's discourse, the boredom we feel toward politics today, is due to the fact that we're all in the rut of our own assumptions.
Subjectivity seems to rule over us.
