Truth and Lies

Came across this graphic the other day.  “The only people mad at you for speaking the truth are those who are living a lie. Keep speaking it.”  Being a Humanist and a natural born thinker, my first thought was yeah, but how do you know if you are speaking the truth or not.  Maybe you are the one who is speaking a lie and you just think it’s the truth. and the reason everyone else is mad at you is because you refuse to embrace reality and you are causing all sorts of problems as a result.

Humanists are naturally skeptical. I realize this graphic is meant to inspire people to keep pushing when they think they are right. But we Humanists prefer to actually be right. So, the first thing we do when we encounter opposition to our ideas is not to assume we are on the right track because people are mad. But to find out WHY people are mad at us in the first place. Again, don’t assume you know. You could be wrong.

image: freedigitalphotos.net

It is only after a humbling bit of soul searching, self-reflection of our motives to ensure we aren’t deluding ourselves combined with quite a bit of research to find out if we have our facts straight or not that we can move forward, assuming that we found out that we were indeed right all along. 

So yes, people do get mad at people who speak the truth. But before you assume that you are speaking the truth, double check to  make sure you aren’t actually repeating a damaging lie

Subjective vs. Objective Knowledge

The world is in color, not black and white
  Image: Worakit Sirijinda / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There is a man on twitter asking me questions. He seems to like my answers, but he also keeps trying to fit my answers into an absolute either/or framework. As a result, his attempts to summarize my views keep missing the mark.

The basic question he seems to be asking is whether there is absolute objective truth or whether truth is, instead, subjective. He seems to want me to be firmly for one or the other. The reality is that I acknowledge and am comfortable with the existence of both types of truth. This isn’t an either/or dichotomy for me. It’s more a matter of how you integrate objective and subjective truths.

Why does this nuance matter? Well, it matters because the world is not black and white. The world is made up of full spectrum color. Attempts to categorize the world in an either/or (black/white) sort of way will almost always lead to an incomplete understanding about the world and about other people, just as it is hindering this man’s ability to grasp what my opinion on these matters truly is.

Because I cannot possibly answer his questions in the 140 character format that twitter allows, let me try to clarify my views here.

I believe in the existence of objective reality. As far as I am able, it behooves me to base my opinions, as much as possible, on that objective reality. The problem is that human brains are incredibly imprecise so, however, sure I might be about what constitutes objective reality; I need to be humble enough to recognize that I could very well turn out to be wrong about what the objective reality/truth really is.

It is also clear to me that much of what I believe is subjective, meaning, it is simply what I believe and no, I don’t always have a very good objective reason to believe these things. It’s just a gut feeling I have. I happen to think my subjective truths, like rape is bad, and my love for my husband and son is good are sufficient unto themselves.

The problem for me isn’t a matter of which knowledge is better. The problem is how do I best integrate my subjective truths with objective reality. And am I willing to adjust my subjective knowledge when objective truths contradict them?  My success in life is largely determined by how accurately my subjective beliefs reflect objective reality. I think the best any of us can do is to be humble enough to admit that our beliefs are largely subjective and that they do need to be adjusted from time to time. And no, that isn’t a sign of weakness. It is a sign of flexibility and a willingness to adapt to reality instead of trying to force reality into your preconceived ideas of how things should work.

As I told my new twitter friend. All rules have exceptions, including this one.