"Is There Such a Thing as Truth?"

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This seems like such a silly question.  Why would one bother to ask it?

 

I am writing about it at this moment because of the ridicule of former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani's almost comic assertion on Meet the Press as to whom to believe on the Russian investigation:  “Truth isn’t truth.”   Or, as Nietzsche wrote, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

 

It reminds me of a talk I gave decades ago.  Its subject was a seemingly unarguable statement which should need no inquiry:  “Does Character Count?”  When I was first asked to address this, I asked “Are you serious?  The answer is obvious.”  The person I was talking to disagreed.  She said it wasn’t obvious and she wanted her students to know why I felt it did count.

 

Today, in the Trump Presidency, this question--"Does Character Count?"--demands an affirmative explanation, given its notable absence in so many of Trump's actions and statements. 

 

However, the subject I address here is, What constitutes truth?

 

To begin, I cite this from Steven Pinker in his book Enlightenment Now:  The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

 

“Reason is non-negotiable.  As soon as you show up to discuss the question of what we should live for (or any other question), as long as you insist that your answers, whatever they are, are reasonable or justifiable or true and that, therefore, other people ought to believe them, too, then you have committed yourself to reason, and to holding your beliefs accountable to objective standards.”

 

I embrace every word of this statement.

 

Our critical mandate is to hold ourselves accountable for assessing what we believe is truth in light of the latest emerging evidence.

 

Viewed in this manner, there are different categories of truth.

 

There are facts that we can be certain will not change in their truthfulness.  Examples would be:

 

·       Two plus two equals four.

·       All human beings will eventually die.

·       Lincoln was the 16^th President of the United States.

·       The Cincinnati Reds play baseball in Cincinnati.

 

Then there are truths which we assert based on the evidence in hand, recognizing the possibility that new evidence could change that view.  For centuries most people felt the earth was flat.  New evidence showed it was round.  A personal example of this is lodged in an essay I wrote during my junior year (1959) at Yale on Reconstruction.

 

I shake my head today as I read how I criticized, even castigated, newly-elected African-American congressmen for their naiveté and ignorance.  I concluded that it had been a mistake to allow these men to occupy political office.  I failed to recognize and appreciate what historians have come to correctly see as the courageous effort of newly-freed African-Americans to assume a leadership role in political life despite continued discrimination.  For me, this will always be a humbling reminder to keep my mind open to the possibility of a different interpretation compared to the one I hold now--informed by new facts and appreciation of the context and environment in which people lived.

 

There is a potential danger in this recognition of the vagaries and unintended consequences of historical events.

 

As historian Richard Hofstadter pointed out almost 50 years ago, “The great fear that animates the most feverishly committed historians is that the continual rediscovery of the complexity of social interests, the variety of roles and motives of political leaders, the unintended consequences of political actions, and the valid interests that have so often been sacrificed in the pursuit of other equally valid interests, may give us not only a keener sense of the structural complexity of our society in the past, but also a sense of the moral complexity of social action that will lead us toward political immobility.”

 

A sense of history, the eminent scholar Richard F. Neustadt warned, can be “an enemy of vision” or, I would add, “an enemy of making a considered judgment.”

 

We must be willing to render a judgment when we have compiled a body of compelling evidence and the importance of the issue requires us to.  But we must always be open to what Pinker describes as “reason" to reconsider our judgment in light of new evidence. 

 

What is most dangerous in the Trump administration is a lack of respect for truth.  A willingness to continue to propound positions which the available body of evidence says are wrong.   Like Trump’s claiming more people attended his inauguration than any other, despite the photographic evidence showing the crowd for Obama’s inauguration was larger.  Or Trump’s supporting the allegation that Obama was born outside the United States, long after his birth certificate and other evidence indicated this was untrue.

 

All this takes me back, chillingly, to what Goebbels said during the Nazi era.  In so many words, "If you keep telling people a lie, again and again, many will come to believe it." 

 

The respect for truth--for the objective determination of what is true based on all available evidence--is a foundation for all interpersonal relationships as well as the life of any organization.  Its denial must be resisted like the plague.