Pitts On the Deniers

The Pulitzer Prize-Winner notes:

Once upon a time, we all drew from the same body of fact. We may have constructed different truths, but they were all based upon commonly accepted facts. We all knew, for instance, that the shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. From that, we could debate what the tragedy meant and we might or might not reach consensus, but as long as no one argued that it was really destroyed by aliens, we at least had the same frame of reference.

No longer, as the questions of whether there was really a terrorist attack on Sept. 11 make abundantly clear. So honest debate becomes nearly impossible and consensus, even more so. I mean, you may think a wall looks best in yellow, I may think it looks best in red. But if we can't agree on what yellow and red are or what a wall is, we have no basis for even arguing about it.