We tend to think of truth in absolutes, in something being true or not true. Sometimes it doesn’t work that easily. There are different kinds of truth that we live with.
Merriam-Webster says truth is the body of real things, events, and facts; the state of being the case. The entry also includes the body of true statements and propositions. So now what is “true”? It almost seems circular…being in accordance with the actual state of affairs, per Merriam-Webster. Reality. Actuality. Hmmm, how often these days does the question of whose reality come up?
There are also personal truths. These are individuals’ personal stories and memories of events and experiences. These are not invalidated as truths because they are personal. Though they may not be completely accurate to what happened. Experiments testing eyewitness reports, certainly show us that perceptions, recall, and what we focus on all play into the story we tell. In stressful situations especially, recall is less accurate.
We tend to believe the stories we tell and see them as true. And yes, to our experience they are true, but they may also be incomplete or wrong. Intentionally or unintentionally. Our mind is known to block out difficult, hard memories. Personal truths are not always black and white, rather there are shades of grey in many of our stories, partly due to time and distance since the original experience.
And then there are those abstract universal truths about love, kindness, service to others, beauty, freedom.
Truth for many it seems, has become relative. Relative to their experience or lack thereof. Relative to who is speaking and if the words spoken agree with the hearer’s position.
Today and for the past 5 years, it seems that truths of all sorts have been under attack. Experts in their fields have been discounted and pushed aside. Stories have been labeled false because they weren’t someone’s experience. Out right, blatant lies had been a daily mainstay that people tuned out.
In this day and age of social media, there are truths shared that cannot be greyed out, cannot be denied. George Floyd, a black man, died last summer under the knee of a white police officer. It took no time for the truth of that event to travel around the globe. At this moment there are over 446,000 deaths in this country attributed to COVID-19.
These are not disputable truths. Yes, some of the COVID-19 deaths included underlying medical conditions that may have resulted in a more severe case of the disease, but they still had COVID-19. Another undisputable truth that has received pushback again in recent years is that the Earth is round. Science has proven that it is an ellipsoid, a slightly misshapen sphere. That our planet is a sphere has been an accepted truth for hundreds of years.
In recent years, facts have seemed as disputable as if we were talking about what the shade of red an object or if 40 degrees fahrenheit was warm, cool, or down right freezing.
So what gives a truth weight? For one, the source of the claimed truth. Our last president made over 30,000 false or misleading statements during his time in office. Statements that were often easily fact checked were shown to be untrue. The source of information, is it widely respected? Is it considered to have integrity, a proven record of honesty and trustworthiness? Are the individuals people of good character? These things matter when we discern if what we are presented with is truth.
Accepting something as truth because we like someone or because they say what we want to hear doesn’t make their statement true. Right now millions of fellow citizens still adhere to a “truth” told to them that has been disproven over and over again at multiple levels and by a range of people on the political spectrum. Some believed that truth to the point of taking it upon themselves to attempt an overthrow of the election results.
The truth may be ugly, as in the systemic racism that continues to flourish. The truth may hurt, as in the death of a loved one from an illness that could have been prevented. The truth may not be what one hoped for, as in the other guy won. Ugliness, hurt, disappointment does not negate a truth. How can we possibly function as a society if truth is truth only if it fits our personal world view? Yes, we have our personal truths, our stories. But they don’t get to trump bigger, communal, and/or universal truths.
We will have a healthier society if we anchor our truths in character traits that matter as shown by individuals, groups, and institutions with integrity; knowledge and facts that are arrived at by widely accepted means, the work of experts in their fields, and shown to be accurate time and again; and with repeated dispelling of what is untrue. Personal and communal, societal truths matter. Truths based and grounded in facts matter. Truth leads to trust and integrity. We cannot live and work together in a well functioning society if truth doesn’t matter.
Leave a Reply