Nancy Huntting, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

As there’s fury in our country about lying and fakery—how can we see what’s occurring in the best way? Why is it important in American history? And how is it about the largest ethical matter in everyone’s life? Read “There Are Truth & America,” the tremendously valuable new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

We are very glad to publish here a short discussion by Eli Siegel on the big subject of lying. It’s part of a lecture he gave in July 1973, and is ever so needed now, at a time when the matter of lying and truth is being talked about and fought about in a way that’s new in our land.

As I comment on the subject, I’m looking at it not in any political way but in terms of ethics, and an intensity about ethics in America. Every day, people of differing political views are accusing others of lying and being accused of lying themselves. One could use all this to feel truth is up for grabs, since anybody can claim to have it and claim an enemy does not. But one would be wrong to use what’s occurring that way.

What is more accurate is: even amid a certain hideous fakery, there is now in America a fury at lying; there is a new sense that truth MATTERS, is IMPORTANT, that the twisting of it should make one indignant and irate. Usually, people talk about truth in an unenthusiastic way, because truth, with its facts, is something people have found it hard to like. After all, the facts so often interfere with one’s ability to have one’s way, to present a picture one sees as advantageous to oneself. The pitting of “my way” against the facts is certainly still in people. However: in these early months of 2017, there is a new non-tepidity about truth—at least some aspects of it. And this non-tepidity, this intensity that truth matters, is a big thing in American history…. Read more.