The Rule of Efficiency over Truth

Last Saturday afternoon, after giving a talk in Oxford, I went for a walk through the parks next to the old colleges, brimming with history. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Barfield. Horse chestnut trees, lawns, rivers, flowers. Leaving the Christ Church meadow, back to the urban area, I overtook a woman laden with a backpack, suitcase, and bulky bundle. I offered to help her and she passed me the cumbersome thing. I learnt that under the case was a dismantled old bike — her previous one had been stolen, and she had just flown this one in from Holland. As we crossed the bridge over the Thames, I asked about her:

‘I work for the World Health Organization, developing mathematical models.’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘I am an epidemiologist.’

‘I seem to remember,’ I understated, pretending to barely know about it, ‘that during Covid the mathematical models failed miserably.’

‘Well, it is hard to get it right.’

‘Sure, but, what was he called, that man…?’ I feigned ignorance again. ‘Oh, yes, Neil Ferguson. Weren’t his mistakes off by about two orders of magnitude?’ 

It is not that Ferguson’s models, which were used to spread panic and to lock down more than half of humanity, predicted twice or three times as many deaths as could actually occur: his models predicted hundreds of times more deaths than would have been estimated if reality, not vested interests, had truly mattered. In a truly scientific endeavor, errors forty times smaller would be unacceptable.

‘Well,’ she replied without losing her kindness, ‘but it made people comply with the mandates.’

I have no doubt that she believed this narrative. The mirage remains, five years later. While I tried a flank move, pointing to the obvious psychological harm the mandates created, we and the bulk crossed a gate: we were at the courtyard of her place. The dialogue would go no further. She gave me a big hug, very grateful — for helping her with her bulk, not for standing for truth and coherence.

I bet that when E. (I omit her full name) began to delve into mathematical models, ten or fifteen years ago, it all was about getting closer to the truth and acting accordingly. Now, apparently, it is about getting closer to a purpose and bending the truth accordingly.

What matters is purported efficiency, not the actual reality. Utilitarianism and post-truth are two sides of the same coin. A coin that glitters before the light of the screens but which reveals itself to be fake before a bright blue sky. The world is under a spell.

The next day, ready to board a BA flight home, the staff clearly announced that we would travel on their smallest plane and our cabin suitcases had to be taken to the cargo area. A passenger next to me went to yield his suitcase and I followed him. He said it was standard procedure, but I wondered. So I asked two uniformed ladies if all our cabin suitcases had to really go to the cargo. ‘Yes,’ both said. Upon entering the plane, however, I realised that once again truth had been sacrificed on the petty altar of utility: many of the passengers kept their suitcases. I asked a welcoming pilot if I was really supposed to comply. Kindly but awkwardly, he stated: ‘Well, I’m not in charge of these things, but actually…’ I got it. ‘So next time I better ignore the order, right?’ ‘Well, um, yes…’

You woudn’t expect an airline to twist things — still, no big deal. Twisting the truth, though, becomes easily harmful in big statements such as those of health authorities on Covid and in the labyrinths built by the infotainment media. 

Tolkien, an alumnus of the Exeter College where I dined on that Saturday, wrote about the light of what we know to be true: “I do so dearly believe that no half-heartedness and no worldly fear must turn us aside from following the light unflinchingly.” Nowadays, however, that light is being eclipsed by the advances of technocracy. As Hannah Arendt noted, not caring whether something is true or false is an essential characteristic of individuals in a totalitarian state. 

The increasing rule of efficiency over truth is a sign of sliding into totalitarianism. And a sign of the decline of one of the key tenets of human dignity: the inner sense of truth. Gandhi called it satyagraha: “holding fast to truth” or the “force of truth.” A force that we can use and technocracy cannot.