A Commitment to Truth

#truth #growth #humility

There is a growing crisis of credibility in most aspects of American life, the most prevalent and immediately recognizable sources of which are present in the media, in politics, and now even in science. It has become normalized in our culture to explore a truth rather than the truth. Again and again I am instructed by books, radio, and television to find and live in my truth, as though reality were a personal preference. In redefining truth, we necessarily change what it means to be truthful. We create a rationale for dishonesty predicated on our own whims and fancies. This is not a step toward social enlightenment—it is delusion.

Many systems lie at the heart of this willingness to supplant what is valid for what is instead appealing. Sometimes this behavior is motivated by a desire to gain greater standing with one’s peers. In other cases, a denial of what is true may be rooted in a sense of community. It is via this inadvisable and often dangerous “group think” that conspiracy theories of even the most outwardly absurd sort are permitted to proliferate. So, too, is this precarious behavior responsible for the formation of cults. When the nature of what is true is allowed to be made so malleable, so indifferent to factuality, it is too easy for one to depart comfortably from reality. This can be a perilous but nonetheless alluring pitfall for individuals seeking a sense of purpose and communion. Thankfully, it is a two-way road; that is, that there is unity to be found among like-minded persons sharing healthy ideas as well.

But it is not principally in the company of others that we are most given to delusion. Confirmation bias, in which one interprets evidence in the framework of one’s existing beliefs, can often be deeply self-deceptive. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current American political climate, where the roots of partisanship have plunged to the depths of blind dogmatism. Lines have been drawn firmly in the sand, and one is expected to take a side and thereby adopt any number of ideologies for which one’s party is known. Because we are meant to be thinking creatures who formulate—but are not married to—our ideas, a suspension of reality is necessarily required to accept en masse and without question any set of principles, sound or otherwise. One is called upon to take up a sort of tunnel vision, blinding oneself to any peripheral evidence, regardless of its veracity. Truth in this guise is not a condition of reality, then, but a system of leverage and gain. This is very dangerous indeed.

In order to repair the damage that has been done by this denaturing of the idea of truth, we must first remind ourselves of what it means to be truthful. We must remember that honesty is a virtue, and therefore it is worth seeking out. But before we presume to hold others to any standard of sincerity, we must first be sure we are being honest with ourselves. We must ask ourselves the hard questions—questions we might not like to be asked in the heat of a debate. We must learn to listen to positions that differ from our own and not arrogantly dismiss them because we have heard it all before. We must learn to think critically again, foremostly challenging our own ideas, our own stances, and ultimately our own egos. Humility, after all, is also a virtue. I do not say that we should doubt ourselves, but rather that we should allow ourselves the uniquely human opportunity to grow wiser through introspection.

God is immutable, but we are not. The beauty of human imperfection is it affords us the opportunity to learn from our errors, to grow and mature in pursuit of becoming the finest possible manifestations of ourselves.

In seeking the truth with an open heart, an open mind, and a willingness to be wrong, we bring ourselves closer to God and humankind alike.