too many Daves

Having decided not to write this post, I was getting into bed just now when I made the mistake of checking Twitter one last time. In doing so, I saw this, which led me to a blog post titled “Monsters in Iran.“ The writer, who is “literally getting my news from people Twittering from Iran,” wrote the following passage:

I sit here, in my safe little dorm room in New Hampshire, and I am utterly horror-struck that they are killing students. Or attempting to kill students. I’m not very sure on the details right now. I just see the pictures and it hurts.

The pictures that are causing the empathetic, good-hearted writer to hurt “are excessively graphic,” she wrote. “They have blood. They have conceivably dead students, judging from the blood.”

My point, which I will try to make succinctly out of respect for your time and for my sleep, is this: Skepticism can be its own kind of solidarity. It can only undermine Iran’s protestors if lies, exaggerations, or honest errors manage to spread far and wide. Lies, exaggerations, and errors can eventually be debunked.

Our own skepticism can deny Iran’s ruling regime the propaganda boon that would come from debunking some famous, widely repeated claim. Phrases such as “not very clear on the details” and “conceivably dead students” should unnerve us, should cause us to be cautious about what we write and what we pass on to others as truth.

The known facts —- such as what we can plainly see in the following news video — are bad enough. Until we know more, let’s stick to that.