The Oxford Dictionary defines truth as “in accordance with fact or reality” which raises a few questions in itself.
Actually truth is an elusive concept. Partly because in practice the truth means different things to different people. In some cases so called ‘truths’ are actually beliefs, ie they are deemed to be truths because that is the belief. Religions and cultures are good at that! But this view seems to be becoming more prevalent – an increasingly popular view seems to be that something is true if you want or believe it to be true. Politicians are particularly good at exploiting that line of thought.
So what are the tests for whether something is true or not – setting aside relying on belief.
Back “in the day” a good test was the authoritative source – sources like Encyclopaedia Britannica. These days that has been replaced by online sources like Wikipedia and Google. Much of the information is pretty good but it is not all good and you have to use your own judgement in deciding which bits are OK. And it turns out the old encyclopaedias got a few things badly wrong anyway.
You can rely on the opinion of experts – but anyone who has seen experts argue completely opposite points of view in a Court of Law would soon baulk at that.
You can rely on the media – TV and newspapers. Good luck to you is all I can say!
You can rely on the weight of opinion, ie everyone says it is true so it must be so. A variation of that is that if something is repeated often enough it must be true. Politicians love this one as well because it is both easy and effective. But history shows us that the lone voice is sometimes the most correct voice – witness Winston Churchill in the aftermath of the Munich Neville Chamberlain disaster.
You can rely on polls ie the collective views of large groups of people. But in polls people often say what they think they are expected to say rather than what they really think is the case. So treat poll results with suspicion particularly if it is a controversial subject. Polls based on actions are more reliable than those based just on words.
But the most reliable test is that of observational evidence. Has it been seen and reported as so? Observational evidence is most potent if you have seen it for yourself and know enough about the subject to be sure to have seen what you thought you had seen. Evidence reported in the scientific literature is also usually reliable, provided it has been peer reviewed and provided it is used in the right context.
And there is the rub again. Evidence is not always what it seems and it is very easy to cherry pick evidence – just take that which supports what you think should be the case.
So the answer is that there is no answer, other than to use all of the sources that are available and to use your own judgement in weighing up the information you are getting.
All of this is grist to the mill for politicians who are quick to use the received truth if it supports what they want to do, and equally quick to dismiss the received truth if it is inconvenient to what they want to do.
There is also an increasing reluctance to be in held to account for being “economical with the truth”. There was a time when being caught out telling a lie was grounds for instant resignation – particularly of a Minister.
I can’t remember the last time a Minister resigned on those grounds although David Cameron’s resignation in the UK comes close. The problem is there are so many excuses that can get rolled out eg:
“I was quoted out of context”
“I was given the wrong information”
“Circumstances have changed since I made that statement”
“I simply don’t believe that to be the case”
“That conflicts with the information I have been given which is more up to date etc”; and so on.
However, I think there is a limit to public tolerance and it will be interesting to find out what the limit is and where the line finally gets drawn.
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This is another of Bas Walker’s posts on GrownUps. Please look out for his articles, containing his Beachside Ponderings.