Tajik Tally #17 #OverheardinDushanbe
Folk Epistemology and the Death of Truth
Things are getting crazy out there. I can’t not write about politics. It’s permeating every part of life in America and where I live in Germany.
There’s a man who was indeed confirmed as the next US Health and Human Services Secretary, who thinks that COVID was created as a bioweapon to target white and black people and not affect Jews and Chinese people. There’s a woman who will be head of DNI—head of all the US Intel Agencies—who believes all the troubles of the world, and especially the actions of Russia and Syria’s murderous deposed president, are America’s fault. It’s like Opposite Day got extended to a year, nay, an era. One they are calling post-constitutional.
This is not a new development. The truth has always been the first casualty of war, and the war on information, attention, and the phenomenon of truthiness itself began decades, even centuries ago. Who can really say how many people died in World War Two? It sorta kinda feels like a lot, right? But can we ever really know? I know people personally who have been radicalized into this line of questioning. They’re called JAQ’ers. Alas, I have dated some jackasses. But I certainly learned a lot from them, with all those questions being asked.
When I first encountered someone whose opinions and sanity I otherwise respected, just asking a few questions about what we grew up learning was a fixture of history, i.e., true events, it took me a minute to figure out what bothered me about this. Of all the things to focus one’s attention on, why that?
There are always motives behind where our attention goes. If we don’t decide where, we will be swayed, nudged, and outright forced to focus on what other people want us to focus on. And by other people, I mean “forces beyond our ken.” It could be any number of actors, state or otherwise, who want us to care about something. To think a certain way. To view a group as “Other.” To question their legitimacy, their right to exist.
Now, in the era of artificial intelligence and deep fakes, it seems almost quaint to think that history is a given, commonly accepted narrative of what happened. The amount of information, true and false and in between, swishing around the digi-sphere is so vast that no one can know the truth anymore. Instead of ushering in an era of access to information, the internet has instead made brainwashing easier and accelerated the process of propaganda, Psyops being the first step in any war.
And who dropped the bombs on Syria that killed over 600,000 people? Hmmm, it could be any number of interested parties, pick a theory—your favorite, biased one will do. How do we know anything, really? I read it online somewhere. I saw a YouTube video. The phenomenon of My-truth-is-how-I-feel-and-a-bit-of-what-I-heard-somewhere was in full swing when I studied in Tajikistan fifteen years ago. Here are a few things I, and my fellow students, overheard spoken in host families in December 2010. Keep in mind that their TV consumption was mostly shows or news from Russia.
People are fat in America because of some chemical additive in food, not because of lack of exercise or fast food.
All black people are dangerous and have guns.
Tomatoes in the US are dry when you cut into them.
Different bacteria don’t exist in America, people get diarrhea from the weather.
Rubbing lamb fat on sore muscles will cure them, among other things.
Eating lamb meat and fat causes high blood pressure.
The reason you’ve gained weight here is due to the great weather and climate of Tajikistan.
And overheard yet again—You either drank something cold or showered in the morning, and that is why you got a cold.
None of these things are uncommon on Twitter nowadays, but in 2010, my idealistic ears were perturbed. Now we have people suggesting that drinking bleach will cure COVID, and no, those people are not from Tajikistan.
Now, for a more light-hearted topic: a glimpse into the smells of Tajikistan and to give a sense of the aromas of Dushanbe in December, here are the main ones:
The acrid smell of the cable cars/trolley buses. When they come down Rudaki Avenue, the sparks fly, and the smell of burning electric cables is unmistakable.
Cars from 1960 are still running somehow. Cars with no emissions standards.
Burning leaves (no, it’s not pot).
Burning garbage.
Burning wood, when every family makes Osh Polov in the outdoor wood stove on Thursdays.
Lamb/mutton being slaughtered and cooked, emanating from the neighbor’s house—a rather foul odor, I must admit. (And the blood pressure here must be off the charts!)
Pickling—herbs and vinegar.
Frying onions.
Cigarette smoke is everywhere. In every restaurant, shop, café, bazaar. I heard that the parliament here passed a law banning smoking in public places, but I have yet to see any evidence of this.
Cheap perfume and body odor, a rank combo.
Conspicuously absent for a large city: dog poo on the streets and homeless people. A few beggars are seen, but their cases are very dire and few and far between.
On another note, a recent public service announcement overheard on Tajik radio: “A pack of roaming dogs killed several small children. Be careful.” These dogs are no joke. I have noticed several typical skinny young Tajik men walking dogs who appear to have twice as much muscle mass as them. Pit bulls and the like. It would be more accurate to say that the dogs were walking the men. There’s an image for the current era.
If you enjoyed learning about Tajikistan, check out my last post in the series on that country:
