In navigating through this world - which, as we know, is full of dishonesty and outright lies; manipulation and propaganda; therefore discernment is a vital skill.
Vital in the sense that our lives (especially our eternal lives) depend on it.
And the most important matter to discern is the character and motivation of other-people - the people who are telling us information and what to do.
For obvious reasons; we would wish to be guided only by those who are honest, competent and have our best interests at heart; and Not by those who are dishonest, incompetent, and have malign intentions towards us.
Such discernment is not all that difficult (most of the time), if we have multiple personal interactions with someone over a reasonable period of time - but that is exactly what we do not have.
Lacking multiple personal interactions over a reasonable period of time; our innate capacities tell us we should not trust someone.
Even worse; we have abstract impersonal entities: institutions, corporations and organisations (the government, the something church, the world health organisation, the national health service, the scientists...) - and it is these that are giving us advice and information.
They are composed of a turnover of unknown/ unknowable employees, each acting under orders (i.e. not personally responsible for what they say or do). Hence; bureaucratic institutional abstractions cannot be moral entities, cannot have good character and intention: ought never to be trusted.
Leave aside questions of competence: because we know for sure that competence is a low priority in all major institutions in the world today, and for the past several decades. But even if they were optimally technically competent; our instincts tell us that such vague, changing abstractions as bureaucracies have no responsibility and cannot be trusted.
So, we find ourselves in a world where we should not trust any of the 'people' whom we are expected to trust - and indeed required (on pain of punishment) - to believe and obey. Even worse; we often know for sure that these persons and insitutions are dishonest, incompetent; and either care nothing for us or actively mean us harm.
This is a plain spiritual fact about the modern condition; but barely appreciated and widely denied.
As is usual in spiritual life; the first step - and perhaps the only possible step - is an honest and valid understanding and acknowledgment of our actual situation - and this is our situation.
