But Maher has another problem: her archive of 29,400 tweets, says Christopher Rufo:
"I have spent the past few days exploring Maher’s prolific history on social media, which she seems to have used as a private diary, narrating her every thought, emotion, meeting, and political opinion in real-time. This archive is a collection of her statements, but at a deeper level, it provides a window into the soul of a uniquely American archetype: the affluent, white, female liberal—many of whom now sit atop our elite institutions.
Americans, even CEOs, are entitled to their opinions and to their own life decisions, of course. But the personal and psychological elements that suffuse Maher’s public persona seem to lead to political conclusions that are, certainly, worthy of public criticism.
“transit justice,” “non-binary people,” “late-stage capitalism,” “cis white mobility privilege,” “the politics of representation,” “folx.” She supported Black Lives Matter from its earliest days. She compares driving cars with smoking cigarettes. She is very concerned about “toxic masculinity.”
On every topic, Maher adopts the fashionable language of left-wing academic theory and uses it as social currency, even when her efforts veer into self-parody. She never explains, never provides new interpretation—she just repeats the phrases, in search of affirmation and, when the time is right, a promotion.
Maher understands the game: America’s elite institutions reward loyalty to the narrative. Those who repeat the words move up; those who don’t move out.
Next, you notice the partisanship. Maher was “excited” about Elizabeth Warren in 2012. She “just [couldn’t] wait to vote” for Hillary in 2016. She once had a dream about “sampling and comparing nuts and baklava on roadside stands” with Kamala Harris. She worked to “get out the vote” in Arizona for Joe Biden but slightly resented being called a “Biden supporter”; for her, it was simply a matter of being a “supporter of human rights, dignity, and justice.”
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a “deranged racist sociopath.”
If you read Maher’s tweets closely, you also get glimpses of the human being. She spent much of her time in airports, taxis, meetings, and conferences. She expressed anger over the fact that most first-class flyers were white men, then noted that she went straight “to the back of the bus.” In her thirties, unmarried and without children, she felt the need to explain that “the planet is literally burning” and that she could not, in good conscience, “bring a child into a warming world.”
Behind the frenetic activity and the moral posturing, you wonder. Maher once posted her daily routine, which involved yoga, iced coffee, back-to-back meetings, and Zoom-based psychotherapy. She resented being served maternity advertisements on Instagram, she said. She was not “currently in the market for a baby” and would not be “tending her ovaries” according to the dictates of American capitalism.
Americans, even CEOs, are entitled to their opinions and to their own life decisions, of course. But the personal and psychological elements that suffuse Maher’s public persona seem to lead to political conclusions that are, certainly, worthy of public criticism."
To answer the question directly: Truth is absolute. It is not a matter of perception, relativity, definition or consensus.(James Redvan)
To address the explanatory text in the question: it is reasonable to note the relativity of the perception of truth, but entirely unreasonable to go on to state "... truth is approximated to what a large number of reasonable people think is true or will agree is true when given enough reason(s)."
It makes absolutely no difference what every person on Earth believes about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. It either does or it does not.
You can argue that the truth of the statement depends on the definitions of "rotation", "Earth" and "Sun", sure. But that is a filter of language over underlying facts. The facts are, independent of semantics.
Does God exist? Belief makes no difference to the fact. Our inability to know makes no difference to the fact. Our wishes make no difference to the fact. Consensus makes no difference to the fact. For a given definition of "God" and "exists", the truth is either yes or no and it is not up for debate.
Morality is based on consensus, but morality is not an issue of truth/fact; it is a human emotional concept.
The answer to this question becomes much clearer when you are careful not to confuse perception, relativity, definition, consensus and truth.
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