It’s funny how even as I was looking for news and scholarly articles on “truth”, I realized the need for me to be circumspect. I was, after all, using the Internet, which has been shown in recent days to not be the most reliable source of information. I did, however, read an interesting article from Psychology Today, titled “Does Truth Still Exist, or Are There Just Alternative Facts?“.It began by discussing a recent statement from Trump advisor, Kellyanne Conway, in which she referred to a discrepancy in the accuracy of a statement between Meet the Press and Sean Spicer, the Administration’s press secretary. Spicer had said that Trump’s inauguration had been “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period”, while the Meet the Press said otherwise. Conway held they merely had “alternative facts”, rather than addressing inaccuracy or incorrectness on either side.
So, “alternative facts”. Let’s break it down. This spring, for instance, I am going on what is called an Alternative Spring Break trip. In this sense, the word “alternative” means another option, namely, going on a service trip rather than home or somewhere tropical. Alternative gives another feasible choice. Facts, on the other hand, are largely irrefutable statements that are TRUE. But now, are we being told that we can just choose what is fact, what is truth? According to the Oxford Dictionary, the Word of the Year 2016 was “post-truth”, an adjective defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.
So, I asked four folks I know to answer two questions:
1.What is your definition of truth?
2. How is truth connected to belief?
And for being four young people of roughly the same age, their answers were at times significantly different.
On the first question, three of the four said something to the degree of truth as something “regarded” or “accepted” by individuals, and with a clear relationship to facts. They described truth with words such as “objective” and “accurate”, or one even claimed that truth is “universally true”. My last responder took a slightly different route with this question, stating: “Truth is not absolute. Truth is when certainties (facts) present themselves and people form ideas that directly relate to those facts.” To him, truth is not in the facts themselves, but in the understanding and interpretation we create regarding those particulars.
Discrepancies existed with the second question, too, especially once we brought the notion of belief into the mix. To them, beliefs are typically a personal spin on truth. They can exist for a small group of people, or an overwhelming population, but are based more on “opinion” and “subjectiv[ity]”. Emotions and background, more than facts, are said to be the groundwork of belief, but this can put beliefs, and their corresponding truths, at odds with those of others. To put it simply, “Your beliefs are truth to you, but may be lies to others”.
What does this all mean? I don’t fear that truth itself has become extinct. These four responses alone evidence an insistence and need for truth in the form of accurate information, facts. I merely believe that much of our thinking as a nation has gone from empiricism to emotionally-charged decisions made from beliefs (I don’t need to reiterate the intensity of ethos in a recent election). Truth will remain, but it’s importance to our society has definitely come into question.
Kate, to tell you the truth, I really enjoyed reading this blog post. You really did a great job of writing about a highly relevant issue in our society. I appreciated the way you brought in anecdotal evidence that could have made this post political, but instead merely presented it as an example of how truth has become so loosely defined by many Americans. I don’t know about you, but to me the concept of truth is becoming ever more similar to how it was portrayed in the book “1984.”