The Truth about Truth

Lies and more lies. It seems that, in this disturbing and seemingly never ending political climate, lies, and accusations of lies, are all we've met. In speeches of every stripe, in the news, Facebook, Twitter, everywhere you look or listen, lies and accusation of lies are what you hear and see. Perhaps it's time to examine the nature of truth, which just might tell us why there is so much lying.

There are two kinds of truth: absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth is absolute: it has always been true, is true now, and always will be true. Relative truth is your truth relative to your understanding of absolute truth. For instance, one absolute truth, at least for me, is, "love is always the best response." Responding in love is absolutely the best response, always, but the nature of that response is a relative truth depending on the belief systems of each responder. Each person who acts in love, acts according to their understanding of the absolute nature of love.

Consider love expressed in parenting. Most parents would agree that love is the best response to their children. But what kind of response? Permissive love? Unconditional love? Tough love? Some believe that spanking is an act of love in that it teaches children respect and obedience, while others believe that spanking isn't an act of love, but rather one that only teaches violence, and reinforces violent behavior. Love is absolute, but choosing ways to practice acts of love is based on relative truth.

The question is, "what does this have to do with the current climate of pervasive disingenuousness, and how can it help us do anything about it?" The answer is that the cause of virtually all that is troubling our world is rooted in the error of believing a relative truth to be absolute.

"My religion is the religion of the One True God, and yours is wrong."
"My political belief (choose one) is the right one, and yours is anti-American!"
"(Fracking; gun rights; vegetarianism; socialism; cannibalism) is (un-American; the Only True American Way; a constitutional right; the harbinger of doom; post apocalyptic zombie cataclysm). Mix and match as your relatively truthful nature leads you.

Unfortunately, when we believe we have the Absolute Truth on our side, we decline to listen to any other possibility, which leads to defensiveness at all costs, the taking of sides, and often the violent rejection of anything that jeopardizes the absolute truth of our position.  Only when we recognize that virtually everything we believe is a relative truth, will we be able to actually listen to one another, and profit from the listening.

And it begins with you and me.

You first.