Political Reality versus Political Facts

Political Facts are just a kind of Political Correctness

In politics, often, people discuss what is true and what is correct. The very concept of political correctness itself is a categorically distinct concept from fact. The term’s origin starts within the upheaval of the Russian Revolution. Political correctness describes a strict adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Later, it became understood as the concept of the “party line.”

I don’t hold an emotional value to the concept of political correctness. It is just a reality that people tend towards correctness. I highly recommend that you extract yourself from polemics from time to time to analyze the choice of rhetoric. It’s not worth imbibing the anger that the media wants you to carry.

Towing the party line is an idiom that passes down into English and the greater English-speaking world’s politics. Similarly, the word ideology, a borrowed word from French, arrives in the English world roughly simultaneously. While these are core concepts to typical politics, the overarching concept of a Political Reality still determines the temporal and abstract of politics as both a mechanical and spiritual concept.

Contrary to political facts, or more appropriately defined, politically correct facts, is that the end state of Political Reality ultimately tests these. Reality is defined as the totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence, and political reality is bounded within politics. The idealization of facts is ultimately tested under the crushing pressure of reality, and reality always filters through what will be the truth.

Consider the discussion of the Russo-Ukraine War. People often proclaim what the United States or Russia should do vis-à-vis Ukraine. That’s an idealization. Russian and Ukrainian corruption is a fact. The reality is that Russia wants (part of?) Ukraine, Ukraine isn’t part of NATO, NATO is positioned in opposition to Russia, and Germany historically flirts with Russia. The facts of corruption matter here in this previous statement, but it still doesn’t say what each actor should do.

Absent a better plan (or, more importantly, presenting the first good-sounding plan), these powers will do what they do as they’ve done, repeating the history and natural tendencies of great powers. Consider this a corollary to Thucydides, “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

When molding public policy or rhetoric for the future, understanding the fundamental differences between these things is critical. The wealth and comforts of the modern era allow people to live in their heads and effectively online, focusing on chosen facts. Each person adopts their political correctness. However, the closer you become to the binary outcome of victory or defeat, or a material, temporal, humanitarian issue like the Russo-Ukraine War, this goes out the wayside and must yield to what actually is.