My recent blog on the Russian habit of lying invoked an interesting comment: “who knows the truth??” At the age of 59, I do not believe there is one (1) truth. The truth is a human perspective, based on Space (eg, cultural location) and Time (ie, past, present, future). A fast-forward – or a reverse – in time may reveal a different truth. Lying is falsifying any truth.
In general, the following “principle” applies: the more people agree, the more likely something is considered a truth. Nobody disagrees with the outcomes of mathematics (eg, 1+1=2). Hence, mathematics is considered a universal truth – and perhaps the only one.
The Truth is also one of the 7 Belief systems, being: Love, Money, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science and the Truth. A belief system provides a reason for sacrificing your own life (eg, Love). However, that same belief system (eg, Love) is also a reason for taking someone else’s life by killing or murdering that person.
An example in literature is Don Quixote (1605/1615), a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Wiki: “The story follows the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) named Alonso Quixano who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to become a knight-errant []”. “Don Quixote [] does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story.”
Believers in conspiracy theories are a more contemporary example. Wiki: “Conspiracy theories resist falsification and are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and an absence of evidence for it, are re-interpreted as evidence of its truth, and the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than proof.”
Besides truths and lies, there is also a hybrid version: the half-truth or Arabian truth, before political correctness took over. Wiki: “A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may use some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade, blame or misrepresent the truth.”
Perhaps the very best example, of the truth being a human perspective, is this question: is that glass half full or half empty? Wiki: “[] a general litmus test to simply determine an individual’s worldview. The purpose of the question is to demonstrate that the situation may be seen in different ways depending on one’s point of view []”.
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” A quote from the 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish poet and playwright.
Policy of Truth (1990) by Depeche Mode
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise
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