Friday, February 5, 2010

Dear George,

When talking about memories or perceptions of events with my father we''ll frequently discuss, debate, argue until at a certain point he'll pull out the old "Do you want to know the truth or what really happened?" It does seem that truth should be certain in the most consistent, concrete and undebatable of ways but then you throw in that wily aspect of the human heart/mind preference and truth becomes a slippery thing. There are realms of truth. The material world is more quantifiable but even there, truth is what one chooses to agree with. During the Bush years (and always in politics), we've seen first hand how if you call an apple an orange for long enough and with authority, masses will believe that an apple is an orange and start naming it so... Therein lies the power of media, cults, education....
I've been thinking a lot about Howard Zinn, a hero of mine who recently passed away. I was fortunate enough in high school to have had his book, A People's History of the United States as my history text book. He was a man who knew a completely different truth from the one that he like most were taught in school. I identified with the information he presented and incorporated it into my truth. But in America that truth is believed by a minority. How can truth be a subjective matter? If truth is subjective than it can't by definition exist. And so I refer frequently to that thing my father says to sort out the discrepancies between my mind/heart and the world around me. Do you want to know the truth or what really happened?

2 comments:

  1. Well! I really beleive that the truth IS SUBJECTIVE! there is no "universal truth" as we all choose our OWN truth, colored by our experiences,upbringing, choices we made, etc... I know people who truly beleive in the god described by the various religions!!! Christ was born to a virgin, Moses parted the red sea,... history is told by people with their own bias, TRUTH does not exist, it is the private deduction of flawed human beings. The good thing is, we can always globally change a "universal" truth if we choose to- I know I am not saying anything new, but the older I get, the more I see how fluid truth can be.

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  2. thats a badass post. I dig it
    matt

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