lies: “to assert power over truth itself.”

People trying to win respectability for clearly discredited theories—or, in the case of Holocaust revisionists, trying to whitewash entire chapters of history—exploited the postmodernist argument that all truths are partial.

the Rashomon effect—the point of view that everything depends on your point of view—has

any symmetrical system whatsoever which gave the appearance of order—dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism—was enough to fascinate men.

tends to overwhelm and numb people while simultaneously defining deviancy down and normalizing the unacceptable. Outrage gives way to outrage fatigue, which gives way to the sort of cynicism and weariness that empowers those disseminating the lies.

of the New Journalism (which put a new emphasis on the voice and point of view of the reporter),

People were less interested in whether something was a fact than in whether it was “convenient that it should be believed.”

Russia still uses propaganda to achieve these very same ends: to distract and exhaust its own people (and increasingly, citizens of foreign countries), to wear them down through such a profusion of lies that they cease to resist and retreat back into their private lives.

Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.”