Writing in the November 1, 2010, issue of The Atlantic, Michael Hirschorn examines the problem that has arisen as Internet-savvy message-makers play fast and loose with facts. He is concerned that social-media moguls, on the right and the left, are making it difficult to discern the reality of any situation amid the messages they want us to hear. He worries that "the Internet creates new and exciting ways to play with truth" and backs his worries with examples from both extremes of the political spectrum.

The problem, Mr. Hirschorn explains, is that "there is no commonly accepted set of facts and assumptions" by which people on opposing sides of an issue can have a meaningful discussion or debate. The message each intends to convey is to them too powerful to let mere facts get in the way: "The urge to shape data to suit the message" is increasingly the guiding norm. Truth is becoming "just another commodity to be bought and sold on the social-media markets".

Mr. Hirschorn sees "the dislodging of fact from the pedestal it had rightly occupied for centuries" as symptomatic "of a larger epistemological, even civilizational, rot." And he is correct.

But it's interesting to see this concern expressed in a secular source like The Atlantic. After all, over the past generation, the secular media has led the way in debunking the idea of absolute truth, fixed standards of value, and abiding institutions. The voices of relativism and pragmatism, which have undermined long-standing traditions of epistemology and civilization, have not come from the "grass roots" but from the opinion-makers and thought police of the secular media and academy.

So it's refreshing to see that they are perhaps becoming alarmed as the electricity of political storm, flowing through the powers of the Internet, brings to life the ghastly creature they worked so hard to create.

But how shall such rot be overcome? Mr. Hirschorn laments that "Few forces exist to counterbalance this slippage." What about the Church? Jesus appointed His Church to the be salt of the earth. In His day salt was a deterrent to corruption and decay. With the secular world waking up to the monstrous power of relativism it has unleashed upon itself, perhaps just here lies an opportunity for the Church to show the way back to sanity.

If we can firmly set our roots in Scripture and the grand tradition of Christian civilization, and if we can begin seeking the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit with revived and renewed determination, it's just possible that the light of truth may once again glow bright, warm, and inviting to an age that is beginning to worry amid the uncertain footing of its self-made slippery slope.

T. M. Moore