Donald Trump's thinking and behavior, his delusions and the bizarre statement he has made as political leader of a great nation--initiates a revolution in human thought: opening the floodgates if you will.

For many years "society" was thought of as a place of rationality--where calm, deeply considered conversations took place--to establish policy, etc.

This fundamental assumption guiding thought in political science departments: politicians behaved in more-or-less rational ways deliberating the best ways to achieve "objectives." It is astonishing the great lengths scholars in the field of political science struggled to view the most bizarre, absurd forms of behavior (mass-murder, genocide, wars which took the lives of millions of people, the possibility of atomic warfare or "mutually assured destruction" through the lens of rationality, as if massive acts of destruction and self-destruction had a "purpose."

The ideas and behavior of Donald Trump brings for the reality that politicians may be crackpots: putting forth bizarre, absurd ideas that make no sense. Challenging the Presidential election results is only one of hundreds or lies or delusions that Trump has put forth.

However, I'm not concerned with that "big lie." I'm concerned with the BIG, BIG LIE that has dominated thought in academia, particularly in the field of Political Science and History (but in every academic discipline).

I propose that culture or society is not a place of rationality, but the location of many forms of lying--or delusion--or fantasy. 

Donald Trump has opened the door to understanding societal thinking and culture as a place dominated by lying, delusion and fantasy. When an entire society partakes of a delusion or fantasy, we can speak of SHARED delusions or SHARED fantasies.

This is not to say that all dimensions of society or culture are dominated by delusion or fantasy. It's probably true that electrons exist. The data is undeniable. Our lights go on every day. Our air-conditioners usually work. And apparently you are receiving what I'm writing now because of a stream of electrons that are flowing, somehow, from my computer. It's much too complex for me to understand how this works. Apparently, however, a great number of scientists know how this works, and the world is being endlessly transformed because of this understanding.

But in the world of politics--ideologies, delusions, and crackpot ideas are the coin of the realm.

It's time to abandon the fantasy that politics is a domain of existence dominated by rationality, much less by "truth."

Richard Koenigsberg