The truth seems like such a simple concept doesn’t it? It’s what actually, physically happened surely? Simple. Yet for every event, ever occasion we will all have our own truth of what’s actually happened. We can all witness the same event, but by seeing it from slightly different angles, with slightly different agendas, we can create a truth that isn’t actually truthful at all.
truth
noun
- the quality or state of being true."he had to accept the truth of her accusation"
- that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.noun: the truth"tell me the truth"
- a fact or belief that is accepted as true.plural noun: truths"the emergence of scientific truths"
So this is what google has just told me as the definition of truth. It’s the latter definition that is really the most confusing one though…we ‘accept it to be true’. Why is that? Why do we just ‘accept’ at all? Isn’t our job as intelligent beings to actually question the truth to go out and discover a collective truth?
Now I’m not trying to get all philosophical here - in simple terms I’ve read a few things online recently which I personally don’t believe to be true…they have not been my experience of the truth. I’m not calling the writers liars, as I believe that they own every word that they’ve written, however they’ve been so one sided - where is the other truth, and shouldn’t all truths be told for readers to make informed decisions?
Infamously most of us ‘get this’ with the Daily Mail don’t we? They write ‘a truth’ that thousands of reads believe, then the Guardian gives another truth which sheds more light on the Mail article.
For example:
People have been appalled that ‘so called’ refugees have been coming over to this country ‘with their mobiles’ so we’ll negate the fact that their homes were bombed, and they fled with whatever they could carry, fearing for their lives, we’ll forget entirely the fact that they were leaving a developed country, they weren’t your ‘mud hut’ refugees that you understand a bit more, we’ll brush over the perilous journey that they had undertaken to get ‘this far’…and we’ll focus on their mobiles shall we? ‘These people’ are ‘us’. I’m sorry but to everyone that knows me, they know that if I had to flee my home, after ensuring that my family were safe, the first thing that I’d take would be my mobile, my communication to other friends and relatives, an opportunity on a contemporary smartphone to find out what was really happening in my country. Surely a mobile makes the most sense? Oh yes…and ‘these people’? They are doctors, and lawyers and students and shop workers..and….they are ‘us’.
Two truths….in that very paragraph above…you chose which ‘truth’ suits your agenda….your deep seated belief will actually decide for you, without you actually realising.
‘THEY’RE NOT CHILDREN…THEY’RE ADULTS’ they cried….next day ‘NOBODY SAID THAT THEY’D BE TODDLERS’ (I’m paraphrasing both headlines) tomorrow it will be the ‘TODDLERS ARE BEING TRAINED TO KILL headline again. All are true…yet all have the bias of the author or the publication attached to them.
How do ‘these people’ fight back? Do they have a platform to write ‘their truth’? If they don’t we’re left with very one sided discussions aren’t we, with the rest of us basing deep rooted decisions based on one person’s interpretation of that word ‘truth’.
Over the years in this profession, indeed in my life (says old granny Thomas) I’ve had various run ins with people saying that the college couldn’t work, I didn’t know what I was doing, calling me a liar (which is a fascinating one to try and disprove because of all the above)…and back in the day I used to get really worked up about it. I would be adamant that ‘my truth’ be heard…as I didn’t want the last word to be my ‘untruth’. Social media took off and I began to realise that you couldn’t police it all. FB and Twitter allows anybody to write anything about you - and you can’t really stop it. You’ve given up the will to live by the time their ‘authorities’ look into it. Our own personal FB pages gives us the freedom to vent….and if we don’t like what the other people say…we delete their words….and eventually we delete them. I’ve done it myself on numerous occasions - life is just too short to be arguing all the time.
So maybe it’s good for us all at times to stay curious about that word truth, as it’s actually not an absolute. It’s a transient word based on one person’s experience, and one person’s agenda…and might…just might, not bear witness to a collective truth.
My head goes above the parapet so often I just as well buy a stool (I’m too short to actually just stand), so I am bound to come under fire again at some point…so I would say, the next time you hear a ‘truth’ about me…ask me about it….as we should all have the opportunity to collect THE ’truth’
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