Reread: "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang

I recently reread "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling," a short story by Ted Chiang from his 2019 collection Exhalation. In one of two alternating narratives, a future society grapples with a new technology called “Remem” that allows continuous recording of every moment and creates a video archive that is instantly searchable. In the other narrative, a teenage member of a mid-twentieth century tribe becomes the first of his people to learn how to read and write. 

Chiang’s futuristic narrator experiments with Remem and finds that a memory of his own behavior was flawed in a devastating way. Although he was initially skeptical of the new technology, his organic memories, softened by age and shaped by his personal narrative, suddenly seem suspect in a way that leaves him shaken. The narrator defends his decision to use Remem, writing:

Digital memory will not stop us from telling stories about ourselves…we are made of stories, and nothing can change that. What digital memory will do is change those stories from fabulations that emphasize our best acts and elide our worst, into ones that—I hope—acknowledge our fallibility and make us less judgmental about the fallibility of others. 

In the second narrative, Jijingi, a young Tiv tribesman who is learning to write from a visiting missionary, describes the different types of truth in his oral society. Vough is precise and literal while mimi is based more in a feeling of what is right. In a legal dispute, the witnesses speak vough while the principals speak mimi. In his decision, the elder speaks mimi and his ruling is final. In the story, Jijingi discovers a clear conflict between a written record and an elder’s position. After he confronts the elder, he decides that the faith he was beginning to place in written documentation (vough) was actually not in the best interests of his tribe:

Jijingi walked back to his hut, reflecting on what had happened…he had begun thinking like a European; his practice of writing in his notebooks had led him to disrespect his elders without his even being aware of it. Writing helped him think more clearly, he couldn’t deny that, but that wasn’t good enough reason to trust paper over people.  

Orality and Literacy

Chiang has cited a 1982 book by Walter Ong called Orality and Literacy as a source of inspiration for "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling." In that book, Ong surveyed oral cultures and catalogued some particular characteristics of their discourse. These include the use of repetition, epithets, and memorable phrases. Some have recently applied Ong’s observations to our political moment, citing Trump’s communication style (e.g., "crooked Hillary," "sleepy Joe," etc.) as an example of a reversion to a more oral mode. One contention is that Ong's work is more relevant to us now since "deep" reading has been on the decline in our own society for years.

I understand why Ong's ideas are garnering new interest. Developing and applying new technology is a uniquely human experience. Technology can alter us profoundly: the way we interact, the way we think. It's natural that we are highly attuned to that prospect and eager for news about the next AI breakthrough. Couple this with our insatiable need for meaning—especially regarding a vulgar politician who has secured unshakable support from about 40% of American voters—and the think pieces almost write themselves. Perhaps a return to more oral communication (at the expense of reading and writing) is a plausible reason for the rise of MAGA?

Ultimately, I don’t find this argument convincing. Instead, Trump's success can more likely be traced to his ability to provide entertainment, stoke grievances, and generate an empowering group identity. As for his unique way of communicating, he has a talent for playing to an audience. His years as a reality TV personality have probably shaped his style more than our society's shift away from deep reading. Concurrently, everyone has been well-schooled by social media, where outrage yields outsized engagement— and outrage has always been Trump’s sweet spot.    

Technology and Discourse in the U.S.

Jijingi was thoughtful as he considered how writing, even with its advantages, could affect his tribe's oral traditions. At the time of our founding, the United States had a strong tradition of written laws, printed news, and persuasive writing. Early U.S. history is replete with rival partisan newspapers that published starkly different versions of events. People read widely and were susceptible to the same partisan pitfalls that we experience today. Essayists like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison sought to sway public opinion and their works were debated in the public square. Face-to-face encounters were common, but were checked somewhat by the threat of real consequences for lies and slander. 

What would Hamilton think of our modern time? Anonymous “keyboard warriors” and bot accounts can bury an article or social media post in minutes. More than ever, distrust is rampant. To use Jijingi’s word, vough feels out of reach. In a world where AI can not only instantly generate oceans of text, but also realistic video, technology has effectively erased the concept of empirical reality. Since a truly unvarnished fact is actually a rare thing, vough is at best an aspirational concept that requires dedicated striving. But our choices demonstrate that we value convenience, entertainment, and self-confirmation more than the pursuit of truth. 

Jijingi’s other form of truth (mimi), relies on trust in someone to know what is “right.” Our founders endeavored to build a nation of written laws, but a sense of trust—in fellow citizens, well-meaning leaders, and experts—was always part of the contract that has allowed our democracy to survive. Much of that sense of trust seems to have eroded in recent years.

Trust and Truth

After rereading “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling,” I believe that the story is just as much about trust as it is truth. Chiang's futuristic narrator learns that he can’t trust his own memory and surprises himself by embracing a new technology that offers the purest form of vough. Alternatively, Jijingi briefly puts his trust in the scribblings of a long-dead government official over the respected leader of his tribe. But he ultimately he decides that, while writing purports to be more reliable than a story transmitted from person to person, he trusts a venerated elder to make the best decision for his tribe even though it is based on a lie. 

Chiang's story prompted me to wonder about the future of trust and truth in our modern moment. An optimist could argue that the rise of AI will put a premium on increasingly rare human-produced content. Oral communication, once overshadowed by writing in many domains, could make a comeback. For example, some professors are likely to move towards an oral examination format when assessing students in order to prevent students from using AI to cheat. Or, in a new oral tradition, the podcast host, who speaks directly into the ears of his or her listeners for countless hours at a time, could be a growing source of trust, and thus some form of truth.

Jijingi had the option to reject technology (at least for a time), preferring to trust his elder's version of the truth. Do we truly have that option today? And who would we trust if we did?

Further listening:

“The end of reading,” Plain English

“This is your brain off books,” Today, Explained