Truth At Large
First published in my print column, The Nature of Things
If anyone here remembers anything from Greek philosophy, you may recall the old guy named Diogenes who walked the Earth in search of an honest man. He died in 323 BC, but through the ages, his legend has been kept alive through many paintings and sculptures—usually depicted as an ancient bearded man, holding a lighted lantern aloft, presumably in his never-ending search for truth.
It’s a good thing he’s not here today, for that search has only grown more complicated than ever. Even the idea of truth is disputed. We say the word aloud and half the time have to disclaim ourselves by adding air quotes.
These days, a person has to be very careful if you’re trying to keep up with all the sensitivities demanded by modern social correctness. Your truth may not be the same truth someone else claims to experience—Truth now being regarded as subjective, sitting comfortably on the same bench with, and wedged in between, Opinion and Belief.
We are all seeing the disturbing ways this has begun to play out in our culture. How especially confusing this must be for our youth, already under constant assault by a virtual world blipping from the digital realm as they reach for some thread of reality still viable and available to anchor to. How frightening to have to work so hard to secure that, and with so many trip wires laid across the path.
This is their world: if I say I’m a rainbow-striped unicorn who poops gold nuggets and grants wishes, well, who are you to object? That would not only be insensitive on your part, but shame-worthy. Shame on you for not believing me and playing along with the lunacy. How dare you question me or make assumptions about my truth. And my pronoun, as you better know, is poocorn—because that’s what I demand in order to feel validated. Don’t step on my dainty pink hooves, or I might cry.
Playing pretend is an important part of healthy development in childhood, so they say. But when people don’t learn how to shut that off and function in the real world it’s called being delusional.
Acting or behaving in a manner contradictory to what is generally accepted as reality, or which can be logically argued. That’s Webster’s definition of delusional. And it’s a mental condition, not a first amendment right.
And while I’m all for personal freedom and rights of expression, We Are the World and Kum Ba Yah, I’m also a staunch advocate for keeping it real. There’s enough falsification of information; fake news and deceit abounds. We don’t need to add to the clamor with attention-grabbing proclamations contradicting obvious facts in the name of personal truth.
As a rule, I’m a person who tries to mind my own business.
Well, I’m in the word business. And I mind.
I mind that words and their meanings are now somehow seemingly subject to interpretation, how a word as solid in definition and concept as truth can be called into question, painted over in a different color, and given a whole new identity.
I made a rather flippant example with the unicorn, but none of this is funny. The implications are staggering. How can a court case be justly tried with truth as a malleable element?
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as you define it?
How would that work?
I guess if truth is no longer true, then we must call upon facts for stating what is real.
I have to believe there are still a fair amount of reasonable people in the world who recognize facts for what they are: the building blocks of demonstrable reality.
Facts can be proven. They are beyond denial, beyond debate, and beyond the delusions of the confused.
At least for now…
