Honesty needs to be the word for 2025

In a world increasingly run by artificial intelligence and algorithms, with disinformation-fuelled populism on the rise, honesty has never been more important

With the turn of the calendar on 2024 and into 2025, we saw the inevitable lists of best-ofs and most-importants and tops.

There was also a lot of talk about a word of the year.

I find these lists somewhat tedious and predictable but, hey, words are important so OK, I'll bite. Sitting in my car in a grocery store parking lot last week I heard the callout on a radio show. I sent in my word to CBC's On the Coast hosted Gloria Macarenko who then read the first half of my missive on air. A friend heard it, said she liked it and suggested I expound on it. 

What I sent about my word of the year for 2025:

Many people know that I was fired from my job as editor of the local newspaper in June 2023. I was fired for saying something publicly that was in fact 100% true. But a few people were offended. 

It’s bonkers, but here we are. We have come to a place in Canada where (loud) people’s feelings are often deemed to be as or more important than facts and reality. 

Truth and honesty have taken a back seat to ideology and belief. The whole world is currently being gaslighted by people who the far right call the “woke mob,” and who comedian Anthony Jeselnik calls the “joke police.” 

It’s almost a cliché at this point because it is so obvious to say that divisiveness seems worse than ever. Extreme views echo off the walls of silos built by algorithms designed to force feed people what the artificial intelligence curators think we want to see. 

Personally I see more honesty and truth from those who what we typically call left wing than from those who are right wing. I think the dearth of honesty is more internal for those on the right. For the left it is external. Here’s what I mean: Some on the religious right who protest LGBTQ rights or even the existence of trans people are in self-denial. They are living with the simplistic lies they tell themselves, or with internalized lies they’ve been force fed on Sundays, or they are just simply ignorant. Stupid people are the last bastion of untouchables whom we are not only not allowed to criticize but to even mention (even though I just did).

Ignorance or stupidity, whatever we call it, is an epidemic among some segments of generations of people who were mistakenly told that everyone’s opinions matter. It’s as if people took Al Franken’s old Stuart Smalley character on SNL’s Daily Affirmations a little too seriously: “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it people like me.”

Then there are those on the socialist left who advocate for LGBTQ rights and decry hate speech and are keen on human rights. All noble goals, but some folks get carried away. We have seen some activists enraged that everyone doesn’t think exactly as they do, both enemies and allies. The left constantly eat their own, something we’ve seen locally with a couple of Chilliwack school board trustees and their supporters. If one dares to point out the silliness of something, for example that there are dozens of different multi-coloured flags in the LGBTQ alphabet soup, that is homophobic. There also have been examples of some on the left trying to quash freedom of expression mistaking their own offence for hatred. Again, just because you are offended doesn’t mean you are right. The ignorant words people such as Barry Neufeld and former school trustee and creationist Darrell Furgason utter are as valid as other speech. It is dishonest to deny people the right to say stupid things. Ignore it or refute it, don't cancel it.

Two examples of knickers so twisted up in knots about hurt feelings are Chilliwack School Board trustee Carin Bondar's lawsuit against Barry Neufeld for calling Bondar "a striptease artist," and Barry Neufeld's lawsuit against Glen Hansman for calling Neufeld's anti-LGBTQ views "bigoted, transphobic and hateful."

The former was actually won by Bondar, Neufeld appealed and a decision by Court of Appeal for B.C. is forthcoming. The latter was won by Hansman. Neufeld appealed and it went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where the original decision was upheld.

"Striptease artist" may have been meant and received as an insult but the comments had zero impact on Bondar's professional or financial life so the decision is an odd one to my non-legal mind. Hansman's comments were definitely meant and received as an insult, but similarly they had no effect on Neufeld's life and in this case, it is also true. Hansman was just being honest, and thanks be for that.

Honesty in our choices

We can’t deny the scientific reality of climate change. Even the worst of the worst science deniers over the years – former MLA and cabinet minister John Les a prime local example – tend not to go there anymore. And even Les would admit it would be undemocratic to forbid scientists from looking into the data, drawing conclusions, writing academic papers and discussing it. Instead, we as a society can make choices about what we do about climate change. Whether we carry on as usual, mostly ignoring the problem, or whether we shut down the economy to save the polar bears from extinction and the island of Kiribati from disappearing, or something in between.

“We can choose what we want, but we shouldn’t deny the true meaning of our choice,” that from historian Yuval Noah Harari, the most import thinker in the world today, in his new book Nexus.

We need honesty in our public debates about science and policy.

Similarly, much of the most divisive political debate today involves one side looking at an issue and coming up with an idea to solve it. But divisiveness ensues when the other side, instead of approaching the problem differently, denies the problem exists, denies certain people even exist, all in the name of adhering to a supposedly infallible set of rules. This type of dishonesty is how we get anti-LGBTQ protesters standing on street corners and on bridges waving signs that are at best inaccurate, but at worst hate-filled lies. This is how religion poisons everything.

Despite what we know about the world as humankind, the anti-science movement that lives in a fantasy world does not seem to be waning. Dishonesty is pervasive.

The DSM and The Bible

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and The Bible are both books filled with words written by humans. They are books that guide behaviour, policy, and they are relied on by billions of people. One book, however, changes all the time as new science emerges, which is how science works. The other never changes because it is deemed to be the infallible word of the god of a couple of religions. (Notwithstanding the ever-changing near infinite interpretations of that book by leaders of the hundreds of sects of those human-made religions.)

To actuate politics through the lens of a Biblical worldview is the epitome of dishonesty. It is to put aside democracy for theocracy, and is what Chilliwack's newest MLA and former school board trustee Heather Maahs does. She is inovlved with a religious organization focused on ensuring The Bible guides public policy.

Maahs and former school board trustee, young-Earth creationist Darrell Furgason, are (or at least were) on the board of an organization called Summit Ministries, which aims to transform the world through their particular worldview. In other words, they want to create a theocracy, which is not unlike how some supporters of Sharia law see the world. Ironically, theocracy-style Sharia law has crept into some Middle Eastern governments that Furgason shares derogatory posts about on his Facebook page: Worldview Studies Center [sic].

"The Christian worldview answers the questions the world is asking," according to the organization's website. "Summit Ministries knows the pressures you face in culture when sharing the Truth of Scripture. You are not alone in your pursuit of Truth."

And by "truth" they mean the opposite: agreed-upon fictions.

The SOGI 123 protestors mentioned above who wave signs around the Lower Mainland are also doing exactly this. They are ignorant of the facts, they have created a straw man and the fallacy pervades their thinking. The dishonesty is remarkable. They tell lies that teachers are grooming children to be gay. Hysteria is fomented over an anti-bullying resource introduced by the BC Liberals a decade ago. They claim that SOGI is the cause of a supposed increase in numbers in the LGBTQ community, rather than recognizing that SOGI is an attempted solution to the hatred and abuse that is arising as more and more people are honest with themselves and with their families and openly admit their sexual orientation and gender identity.

SOGI is an imperfect, fallible, democratic self-correcting mechanism to try to tackle a specific type of bigotry. It is an attempt to be honest with students who are learning about their peers who are coming out of the closet and being honest with themselves.

If those opposed to SOGI were opposed to it for some practical reason, such as it is too expensive, we could debate the differences between a more conservative and a more socialist approach, as with the example regarding how much we should invest to tackle climate change. But those opposed refuse to be honest and admit that their opposition is rooted in interpretations of certain sections of ancient texts written thousands of years ago and curated into a never-changing book. 

We need more honesty in 2025, all around.

MORE: 'Brain rot': Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2024

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Paul J. Henderson
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