Will the truth save us?
I can see the appeal of all those slogans about freedom and human rights and ‘telling truth to power’ and ‘the truth will set you free’, even when they are circulated by people who hide behind weird cyber-identities. It seems to me that any political slogan that deserves to be taken seriously ought to be discussible, which means that you can see how some reasonable person might disagree with it. But I can't see much in this stuff about freedom and truth except empty moral tautologies – the practical equivalents of ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’. Who could possibly dissent from them? And in that case, why should anyone bother to assert them. And also: who gains by reiterating them?
As it happens I’m still on the other side of the Atlantic, working away at a brilliant and serious research institute that also has of the attributes of a summer camp. I’ve been burrowing in the special collections of the Library reading some rare copies of the political pamphlets that poured off the British and American presses in the 1770s and 1780s, in support of the ‘colonies’ and their struggle to break away from British rule. We have all been brought up to think that the British war on the colonies was absurd, and the American Revolution a Good Thing; we have probably been taught to think of it as the triumph of something called ‘The Enlightenment’, the supposed vanguard of the modern secular world. Indeed you may have enjoyed the brilliant collective portrait of some of these guys in Jenny Uglow’s best selling book
But Uglow is so keen to argue that the great scientific and political experimenters of the eighteenth century were the architects of the modern, secular, democratic world that she underestimates the extent to which they were also evangelical Christians. Revolutionaries like Joseph Priestley and Richard Price may have been disciples of Newton, but what was much more important to them was that they were followers of Jesus Christ. They were amongst the earliest thinkers to talk about progress in terms of ‘enlightenment’, but enlightenment for them was not a matter of science and secularism, but of the second coming of Jesus Christ, which they saw prefigured in the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. These eighteenth century revolutionaries may be heroes to what I call the ‘good-conscience left’, but if they are the intellectual progenitors of Noam Chomsky, Tony Benn or George Galloway, they have an equally close relation to Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and George W. Bush.
And it seems to me that conceptual analysis will confirm what historical narrative suggests: that the champions of the progressive left and the conservative right today have more in common than either of them would like to admit: namely a dogmatic and totally evidence-proof belief in the absolute saving power of truth, and indeed of truthfulness, and hence the over-riding importance of freedom of speech and belief, regardless of the sufferings they may cause. (I’m not saying they always tell it like it is, but if they lie it is always, as they see it, in the name of some higher truth.)
Now those eighteenth century evangelical revolutionaries had very good reasons for their ideological absolutism: they thought that when Jesus comes to rouse us from the sleep of death, we will be accountable for our own willingness to accept the truths of natural and revealed religion, rather than for our obedience to any political or theological authority. They may have believed that freedom can create a better and happier society, but for them the reason why it saves us is that it saves our souls for Jesus. Of course plenty of people still believe in Jesus, but what about those of us who are not quite so sure? What reason do we have to place our (post-religious?) faith in truth, freedom and enlightenment?
The implication that truth, freedom and enlightenment hold true only in the context of religion is clearly not the case: Before man there was truth, before the world there was truth and when the universe ends it will be the end of truth as nothing exists in nothing.
Why is truth so important? Take the following sentence, 'All things that have a begining have an end.' At a glance harmless, but when examined and translated into reality it becomes an all powerful construct with universal implications. Such a sentence now becomes something to be examined, to prove or disprove, the reasoning is the thing, the truth.
From truth comes understanding, from understanding comes power and from power comes freedom. Freedom, to think, to act, to review, all remain true. What we now call freedom is something different to the truth of the matter as we are all always free.
Enlightenment, surely, is nothing more than the continual persuit of knowledge and understanding. If this is the case then there are no greater truths just the simple facts from which all is derived. Is any one piece of information more important than another, is knowledge contiguous and infinite?
Truth, Freedom and Enlightment are human traits and when any of these are suppressed resistance occurs. These concepts were true in the past and they are still fought over again and again, a testament to there apparent indestructibility.
Loving these articles.
The truth is that the morons have outbred the smarties, we are all doomed.
www.vhemt.org
Call it what you will but all discussions about our existance here come back to our own belief systems, which are often influenced by our religion or someone else - like your parents.
There is a great deal of worth put into science and knowledge these days often to the exclusion of other more nebulous and human things. But my experiences in life have taught me that science and knowledge with love and compassion often fail and trip the followers up.
Witness the prolification of technology today and see it's harmfulness if not tinged with compassion. Watch the elderly struggle with the new technology and fail if not helped along the way.
I'm a great believe in honesty, truth, trust, fidelity, compassion and all those nobler things. Not because I have been taught I should or read it in a book, but because I have almost graduate from the greatest university on earth or perhaps beyond earth - yes 'the university of life' planet earth.
I have tested all the human foibles and found them all wanting save those nobler ones I have just listed. In the end they pay dividends sometimes not observable and sometimes not in this lifetime but they do.
And at the core of them all, all the great religions - yes even Islam - which is getting a bashing at the moment - at the core of them all are these noble truths. what man does and it is more often man than woman - is stuff it up by getting smart and adding more thoughts to the noble truths.
They can perhaps all be summed up with the one phrase "love your neigbour as yourself" - a simple phrase that could take another blog of its own for further discussion. And you will find this sentiment in the great Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic tomes too.
Today more than ever I rely more and more on something I think is more valuable than science and knowledge - and that is good old fashioned "intuition" - some of our more enlightened gurus tell us that once honed and practiced it never lets you down. But for many of us it has become a little rusty and needs polishing.
I often call myself the "infernal optimist" - I guess you have to be one or the other and either believe the glass is half full or half empty. But I do believe in the human spirit above science and knowledge and so say - yes - let's use science and knowledge wisely and share it and with compassion but don't let's ever use it alone without the noble truths!
Hi Fitz
I agree with a lot of what you say, and I wonder whether it's one of the good things about getting older in a life where one has thought long about these issues, that intuition does indeed become much more reliable.
A gentle point: didn't you mean "But my experiences in life have taught me that science and knowledge withOUT love and compassion often fail and trip the followers up"? That seems to chime better with the meaning of th erest of your message.
Dion
Dion - greetings and thanks for your views - yes I did mean to say what you pointed out but these infernal boards will not let you go back and correct - so we learn the hard way - be careful and more diligent - difficult at times as being on the other side of planet earth I have to type this standing on my head!
but a rider to this is - good polished intuition does NOT I believe necessarily come with old age! It comes to those it comes to over time and some equate time and learning to aging - but they are different.
And I have met a handful of 'oldies' who still don't have wisdom and intuition and may never do so!
And I don't either think that they come to you whilst you are just sitting on the park bench. They need to be worked at through several processes of life.
Digging for gold don't come easy but when you find it it's considered a precious metal - ergo wisdom
The truth cannot save us because the very notion of truth is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
If the truth has been revealed to me, then I know that I can stop looking. The hard work of seeking knowledge is now not just hard, but superfluous.
If the truth has been revealed to me, then I know that you are wrong, and that the voice in your head revealing "truth" to you must be the voice of the devil. Would killing you not be an act of grace?
If the truth has been revealed to me, then I have carte-blanche to ignore the Golden Rule and treat others in any way I please. Only if you agree completely with my truth do you deserve to be taken notice of, and of course nobody agrees completely with my truth. People may stand on different places along the axis of evil, but everyone in the world (apart from me) stands on it somewhere.
Truth is dangerous. Even atheists become dangerous when they start to believe that the truth has been revealed to them - you can readily apply all the above to the early USSR, too.
The greatest gift the English have to offer the world may after all turn out to be the Anglican church - a Mostly Harmless blend of comforting truth and safe apathy....
People do not like the truth so they live a lie.
If people were interested in the truth instead of fiction then the middle east would be full of people drinking beer and eating barbecue pork sausages instead of trying to kill each other and praising their god.
Why is repetition important? Take the following headline: "Brits 45 Minutes from attack"
---i recommend reading "the fabric of reality" by david deutsch. in it, you will find that the follwing are all different aspects of the same general universal trend, truth: development of art, scientific progress, moral progress, biological evolution.
---also read "godel, escher, bach" by douglas hofstadter. in it, you will find that it's about pushing (back) and popping (forward).
---how good is your baloney detection kit (and non-baloney detection kit)?