“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
André Gide
—-
Ok. I am always wary of those who come out blazing by claiming to speak “the truth” mostly because I believe rarely are things black & white or that truth is easy. This wariness of mine means I am optimistically cynical.
This can sometimes be construed as a contrarian <with some clear pragmatic boundaries>, but, it is not. Truth is hard and having a fact, or even some facts, on your side doesn’t guarantee you are holding the Truth card.
All this leads me to say that in today’s world I see too much lazy thinking <or possibly lazy sloppy communication>. This is most typically fund in people quick to select the facts they want to use and ignore others and then pontificate on “the truth.”
Anyway. My inherent cynicism makes me question everything upfront <or maybe one would hope as I have become older I can judge what to question and what to accept upfront>. I actually believe this is good use of cynicism. Instead of cynicism dragging things down it is used to structurally build UP, brick by brick, fact by fact, the truth.
In old times <like really really old> this questioning would be a version of Socratic questioning <but I am not as smart as good ole Socrates>. Socratic questioning focuses on the importance of questioning in learning <Socrates actually thought that questioning was the only real form of teaching>. Simplistically, Socratic questioning highlights the difference between systematic and fragmented thinking.
It teaches us to dig beneath the surface of ideas.
It teaches us the value of developing questioning minds in cultivating deep learning.
So. I imagine my point is that questioning <a version of conflict> actually helps us get closer to the truth. In a way, despite the fact ‘debating’ sounds glamorous, it is actually what I would call ‘the grinding of truth.’ You grind your way through the fragments until you have uncovered the truth.
The art of Socratic questioning is tightly aligned to the idea of critical thinking mostly because it ties the art of questioning to excellence of thought. To summarize this thought “Socratic” means a systematic approach in the interest in assessing truth or plausibility of things.
Both critical thinking and Socratic questioning share a common end — seeking meaning and truth.
Critical thinking provides the conceptual tools for understanding how the mind functions in its pursuit of meaning and truth.
Socratic questioning employs those tools in framing questions essential to the pursuit of meaning and truth.
The beauty of critical thinking skills is that it establishes an additional level of thinking to our thinking, an inner voice of reason, that monitors, assesses, and reforms our ideas/opinions/thoughts <in a more rational direction> and affects our feelings and actions. Socratic discussion cultivates that inner voice through an explicit focus on using the “outer voice” with directed, disciplined questioning. This becomes important because everyone has biases and some heauristic thinkng embedded so introducuing external/outer voice increases the likelihood you will not be blinded by your bias or beliefs.
So. What this means is that a shitload of the people adamantly stating ‘the truth’ (and we seem to hear a lot of these people on radio shows and talk shows and “advocates” of some special interest) are actually lying.
Ok. That lying thought. Maybe I could better say that they aren’t stating truth, but rather opinion under the guise of truth <and duping a significant amount of people along the way>. Yeah. Some of them are quite crafty in that they will sprinkle a fact or two into their opinion in the attempt to buttress up the opinion. Now, most are smart enough to know they are cherry-picking a fact or tow and assembling them in a way that looks impenetrable (but its actually flimsy), but they have made a choice. A choice to state truth when it is simply opinion <and shame on them for that … particularly if they do it under the ‘freedom of speech’ heading as well as if they have some ability to impact people>.
The truth behind the truth is that it does come with choice.
Try this on for size.
With awareness of some truths comes choice, and, with choice, freedom or chaos or crisis. This comes from 19th Century philosopher G. W. F. Hegel.
Discarding an absolute notion of truth, he saw today’s “truth” merely as a passing “bloom” in an evolving process of new “blooms”.
<let’s just call these stupid blooms … ‘ideas’>
Ideas and truth advance, he believed, only as ideas come into conflict.
This occurs when a counter idea <the antithesis> arises to challenge the status quo <the thesis>. It was this “conflict” or “crisis” which brought about the “higher idea” <the synthesis>.
Now.
Let me be clear.
The Hegelian Dialectic is more of an observation of the way thought systems evolve than it is a suggestion on how systems themselves evolve <so crisis is not an action, but part of thought>. Think of it as maybe a Plato would – someone states a belief or ‘perceived truth’ and the debate is the ‘crisis’ – or when an antithesis point of view is articulated- of which synthesis occurs and, hopefully, truth emerges. I invested some energy explaining that so no one starts running around being crazy trying to drive “crisis” into every frickin’ conversation we have.
That said. Marx and Darwin applied this notion to the social and biological realm. Marx and Communism stood on a pillar of crisis <just called revolution>. The higher social order could only arise from the “crisis” of conflict—the proletariat arising to battle the bourgeoisie. Darwin and Neo-Darwinian theory see the higher biological order arising only from a life and death struggle—survival of the fittest.
So. What this suggests is that truth can only arise from crisis <or in a dialectic world> through debate and discussion.
I know I do not dislike this thought.
As long as we don’t start thinking there is something “magical” in a crisis and see the debate as the synthesis necessary to cultivate truth this is not only healthy but creates some healthy truths.
Anyway.
Crisis is a big word. And easily misunderstood <at least by someone with a pea like brain like me>. I don’t believe we need crisis to create change. Simply some conflict. Simply some debate for god’s sake.
Maybe some questioning of people who state “the truth.”
<then that debate within conflicting point of views could be construed as a ‘crisis’ and Hegel can sleep at night>
All that said I imagine a legitimate concern one could have in reading this is that I am suggesting never ending debate. Or maybe even “unresolved conflict” because diametrically opposed opinions are locked in “absolute truths” and are unwilling to accept anything otherwise.
In other words, we never leave “crisis” mode.
I am not. That is bad. And useless. And dangerous.
But.
The entire idea of “thought” to ‘crisis in debate’ to ‘a clearer truth’ is a viable thought. And maybe that is the immost important truth – it is really really rare to reach an unequivocal truth, we more often simply have a clearer view of truth as it exists within a context, time and place.
So when someone states “absolute truth’ without debate or discussion I think its kinda nuts. Heck. I often think its nuts even after debate or discussion.
Oh.
One last important thought <a REALLY important one in this entire discussion>.
We are as much at fault as the “liar” if we remain silent when facing lies, partial truths or opinions masking as truth.
Silence is the death of debate.
The death of the search for truth. No questioning = no truth.
Think about that the next time you hear something that sounds … well … wrong.
And you remain silent. Your silence is killing truth.
Anyway.
Optimistically cynical in pursuit of truth. Maybe Dill said it best:
——
“I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?”
=
Dill, To Kill a Mockingbird
—–
Do not remain silent in the search as an optimistically cynical view of truth.