|
September, 2001 What is Truth?The main item for this month's agenda was occasioned by a comment from one of my sailing buddies. He is computer savvy and surfs the net. I therefore encouraged him to visit thinktruth.com but he didn't quite know what to do with the title. So I explained "think truth, that's what you're supposed to do anyway all the time!" Whereupon he replied "ok, but there may not be any." Thus we are back at Pilate's question: What is truth? When I chose this particular URL for the website I had obviously underestimated the relativism which has invaded our culture. For me the situation was quite simple. The truth which is discussed on these pages is not absolute or ultimate truth in the philosophical sense but simply that aspect of our daily lives which is objectively verifiable by independent observers. It is the opposite of the lie where the individual deliberately misrepresents facts as known to the person. Right now lying is, of course, making headlines on account of Gary Condit's behavior. The majority of Americans who have seen his interview with Connie Chung on TV don't believe that his account has been truthful. Even if the Congressman were to sincerely believe that his answers were forthcoming and complete, a simple check with the Levy family or the Washington DC police can establish what the facts were. It may be argued that this amounts to a "he says, she says" situation but this is not the case. Police records of his interviews exist, they are potentially available for public scrutiny and objective data can be established. President Clinton wagged his finger at us a few years ago and told us emphatically: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Well, we had to take him at his word until the famous blue dress appeared, which had not gone to the cleaners in the meantime, and provided objective evidence for his activities. Clinton subsequently amended his statement by trying to imply that Miss Lewinsky had sex with him but not he with her or that oral sex does not constitute a sexual relationship. But anybody who is not blindly partisan or devoid of all common sense is likely to see this as excuses rather than the truth of the matter. The ex-President even lied under oath because an oath demands: to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. There is good reason for this because the most vicious and most common lie is the deliberate withholding of relevant information. The fact that Mr. Clinton was impeached but not convicted sent a signal that even an oath need not to be taken seriously provided you are sufficiently powerful and can afford superb lawyers. Mr. Condit seems to have drawn an inappropriate lesson from the Clinton affair. Stonewalling worked for Mr. Clinton, in my opinion, because the Democrats did not want to lose the Presidency and the Republicans were afraid to face an incumbent Al Gore in the upcoming 2000 elections. It was assumed that a seriously damaged Clinton would be so much easier to defeat than an untarnished Gore. That the election turned into such a cliffhanger anyway they would not have predicted even in their worst nightmares. Thus all the phraseology of "popularity" of the President and not having committed perjury anyway was pure politics. The Senate trial was a sham as Schippers has documented in Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment. But as far as Mr. Condit is concerned this situation does not apply. He is neither rich nor does he have sufficiently powerful friends who will defend him regardless of morals or ethics. Furthermore the Democrats can afford to lose a congressional seat, if worst were come to the worst and he had to resign; it is not the Presidency after all. On top of it we have the missing Chandra Levy and her parents are not going to give up their search as well as their efforts to have the Congressman come up with the full story and thereby the truth about his relationship. Telling the truth is, therefore, not just some intellectual exercise for philosophers but has very practical consequences for our daily lives. In my personal opinion Mr. Condit did have, in all probability, a sexual relationship with Miss Levy but I sincerely doubt that he had contracted for her disappearance. Had he immediately informed the parents and the police voluntarily and completely of everything he knew he would not be in such dire straits today and the case might have been solved. Adultery is, unfortunately, a "so what" situation today, so is casual sex to which we are treated every night on TV. Nobody would have been particularly upset apart, perhaps, from Mr. Condit's wife. But she, like Hillary Clinton might also have become inured over the years to her husband's constant philandering and not lost any sleep over it. There is a reason why I have become so concerned about truthfulness in our daily lives. As is apparent from War and Mayhem I had been an expert liar during my childhood and had frequently suffered the consequences. When lying was literally beaten out of me by my stepfather I not only learned that telling the truth is morally right but it can save you not only grief but even your very life, as is also documented in that book. Currently our society is steadily being weaned from the truth. We are lied to by politicians, the media, advertisers and other assorted folks to such an extent that it has practically become the norm. The truth as an intellectual concept seems to have vanished. Truth has become personal and is what I believe regardless of what you think. There is an ancient precedent for this which was quite unknown to me until a few days ago. My next book The Moses Legacy, which deals with the problem why Jews have been persecuted since biblical times, has not yet found a publisher. But while Moses keeps wandering through the offices of various publishing houses I am using the time to polish a few paragraphs here and there. In so doing I was puzzled that in Heschel's book A Passion for Truth he described an Abraham who bears hardly any relationship to the person we know from the Bible. For instance Heschel stated that "This is what Abraham did. He forsook community and deception to live with Truth in solitude." This was news to me because the Bible tells us that he moved with his whole clan from Haran to Canaan, subsequently to Egypt and back, had a vigorous sex life, was engaged in wars and commerce etc. This is hardly what one would expect from an individual who lived "with Truth in solitude." The problem is that the relatively recently deceased Abraham Joshua Heschel was, and still is, highly respected as one of the most eminent orthodox Jewish scholars. The question arose, therefore, how to resolve this discrepancy. The key word, obviously, is Truth. For this reason I looked up the definition of Truth in McKenzie's Dictionary of the Bible because we are, after all, dealing with biblical information. The result was highly surprising. Mc Kenzie states "The difference between Hb [Hebrew] and Gk [Greek] speech is clearly exhibited in the idea of truth; Hb has no distinct word for true and truth. These ideas are expressed by 'emet and cognate words which are treated under FAITH." The entire subsequent passages are too long to be reproduced here but will show up in The Moses Legacy. In essence McKenzie points out that the real, or truth, was personal for Hebrew-speaking people while truth and faith were clearly differentiated by the Greeks. We used to follow in the footsteps of the Greeks where truth is objectively verifiable while faith is subjective and personal. It was this difference which made scientific progress possible. It seems that we are now turning our backs on this fundamental distinction. Inasmuch as a theory of relativity exists which pertains to cosmic phenomena everything else can also be regarded as relative. This sort of thinking undermines society at all levels. Law is no longer based on long established practices but represents an opinion by a judge, or groups of judges, at a given time rather than as what it has been understood for centuries. These opinions, although binding for a while can, however, readily be overruled by other judges because they are, after all, only personal opinions, regardless of how precedents have to be massaged in order to make them appear to be reasonable. As explained in The Moses Legacy this type of thinking is directly derived from the Talmud, where Moses' laws were not only questioned but underwent personal interpretations. When "Talmudic thinking" (the term is not my invention) moves from religious to civil and criminal law, as has happened in our country during the past few decades, problems are bound to arise. When all the established customary landmarks for decent behavior are being removed chaos must inevitably result. Is this really the direction we want to go, in this new century and millennium? Or should we not return to some reasonable and firm rules of conduct the majority can agree on, and which can be adequately enforced? Inasmuch as thinking precedes language we have to scrutinize first our thought processes so that we can then express our ideas in clear and unmistakable language. What prevents us from thinking truthfully and speaking the truth? Fear! What are we afraid of? The myriad of untoward events which might befall us and which imagination magnifies out of all proportions! "Du fürchtest alles was nicht trifft" (you are afraid of everything which doesn't come to pass anyway) said Goethe, and he was right. But even if society removes "the ancient landmarks," to use biblical language, the individual does not have to do so. The Lord has given us strength and the ability to adapt to adverse circumstances, if and when they arrive. Instead of being fearful of what might or might not happen in the future let us be grateful for whatever we have in the present. With this attitude towards life, and its vicissitudes, lying becomes superfluous. |
| Feel free to use statements from this site but please respect copyright and indicate source. Thank you. |
Please E-mail this article to a friend
Return to index!
Return to index!
