What is Truth?

Websites are a great way for people to share opinions on the computer industry, whether it’s reviewing a new program or commenting on the standards of customer service for some manufacturer or retailer. Some people stretch the definition of what’s relevant to Mac-oriented site a little. At AppleLust, the editor there is often given to involved discussions on philosophy taken from, strangely enough, a Mac perspective. In one article he likened Mac users to the early Christian community in Rome; a small, persecuted, minority who believe they are party to some secret, fundamental truth living in a hostile world of unbelievers.

True believers are often convinced that not only to they have the clearest vision of the world, but that those who cannot see it too must be blind. Some people call this political bias, others prejudice. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, because to a greater or less extent we’re all subject to it. Journalists, whether amateurs compiling blogs or Pulitzer Prize winners writing for the Washington Post, all say as much about their beliefs when they write as they do about the facts they are reporting.

Some media channels are obvious about it, while the bias of others is much more elusive. Fox News, for example, is consistently right wing, whereas the BBC more or less adopts a bias that is vaguely antithetical, and occasionally overtly hostile, to whichever political party is dominant in Britain at the time. So while one outlet has become the party organ of the Republican Party in the US, the other is currently as harsh to Tony Blair as it was to Margaret Thatcher twenty years ago.

So whether you’re reading a piece in the Washington Post or a blog at MyMac.com, there’s exactly zero chance that you’re reading something neutral, unbiased, and objective in any meaningful sense of the word. Years ago, the Manchester Guardian ran a television commercial that juxtaposed two camera angles of a single event. From the first angle, you saw a young, casually dressed black man running towards a smart, well-dressed white woman. The interpretation was obvious: he was about to mug here. But from the second angle you saw what was actually happening. Rather than trying to steal from her, he was trying to save her, by trying to push her out of the way of some collapsing scaffolding he’d noticed before she had. As a Vorlon once said, œunderstanding is a three-edged sword, my side, your side, and the truth.

So what’s the Mac angle? Well, it comes down to any one of us expounding the flaws or virtues in any particular part of our computing experience. When someone opines that Windows XP sucks, ask yourself how familiar is that writer with Windows? Is the fact they find it inferior to the Mac more a reflection of their ignorance of that operating system than anything else? If someone says a certain program cannot do the things another program in the same niche can, perhaps it can’t, or maybe it’s just that the writer doesn’t know how. Mac users will shout loudly about the virtues of their operating system, and PC users will do likewise, but few of those in either chorus will have deep and equal experience of both platforms. In other words, most of the people doing the talking are speaking from ignorance, have no intention of being dissuaded, and really have nothing worthwhile to say. It just the same as when Republicans and Democrats each says their piece, but neither dares to see things from the other’s perspective. The result is tiresome, one-sided barracking that generates more heat than illumination.

Whether you’re reading a piece about upgrading a Mac Mini or the boardroom politics at Apple Computer, every Mac journalist is as likely to colour the facts with their own hopes and suspicions as they are to report them at face value. That’s the problem with writing; as soon as you put pen to paper, your end up saying more about your assumptions and prejudices than you do about the world around you. Ultimately, the only ones who really can be truly neutral about our world are those who aren’t involved in it, and so far, the Martians have turned down all invitations to appear on the MyMac podcast.