CRISPIN SARTWELL

The news pages are now routinely the site of the rankest propaganda.

“Denialism” sounds monstrous. It was coined decades ago to designate people who claim the Holocaust didn’t happen. Around 2005, climate-change activists appropriated the term and started to refer to their opponents as “climate deniers” (or, later, “science deniers”). This was an attempt to discredit them by linking them to Nazis without making any factual assertions whatever.

Logic, a discipline invented by Aristotle, teaches that every positive claim is equivalent to a negation, and every negation to a positive claim. Affirming truth and denying falsehood are the same act. But reporting the news and making people feel disgust for your political opponents are not.

Logic, a discipline invented by Aristotle, teaches that every positive claim is equivalent to a negation, and every negation to a positive claim. Affirming truth and denying falsehood are the same act. But reporting the news and making people feel disgust for your political opponents are not.

“Denialism” sounds monstrous. It was coined decades ago to designate people who claim the Holocaust didn’t happen. Around 2005, climate-change activists appropriated the term and started to refer to their opponents as “climate deniers” (or, later, “science deniers”). This was an attempt to discredit them by linking them to Nazis without making any factual assertions whatever.

The news pages are now routinely the site of the rankest propaganda.