Rambling on Truth; I can’t seem to let this topic go…

...begin ramble...

Destruction and Creation.

Two sides of the same coin. Tearing something down / Building something up. Looking for problems / Looking for solutions. Offering up a complaint / Implementing a fix.

One path is simple, obvious and easy. The other path is complicated, ambiguous and difficult; demanding determination, sacrifice, toil, blood and sweat.

The real interesting thing is that when one engages in the act of either creation or destruction the result is enormously satisfying emotionally. You might say engaging in either endeavor yields the same level of emotional satisfaction.

For this reason problem identifiers are more commonplace in society than problem solvers.

Now throw in judgment. Judging is also an act which provides extreme satisfaction. Judging a situation, identifying who or what is to blame and broadcasting the problem to others yields great satisfaction; and people love to hear it. Especially if what is said caters to what the listener wants to believe. Facts, at this stage of the exercise, get thrown to the curb. Judgment and opinion is king.

I refer here to the latest campaign for president, and indeed all political campaigns, where solutions are set aside for the focus on problems and on the personal character of the candidates. Many claims and accusations were tossed around in this last election, especially about the character of the candidates, but little focus, as usual, was put on the real facts behind the problems we face as a nation and how to find solutions to those problems.

Because destruction is so much easier to act on than creation, and because each yields equal amounts of satisfaction, I propose that man has a natural tendency to destroy (no great revelation here, I know). Destruction is simple, obvious and easy. Identifying problems and broadcasting them is simple, obvious and easy. The act yields great satisfaction to the individual engaged in it.

As a result, the act of complaining has become a full time job; a career choice. Commentators on television, radio and the internet spend their days looking for problems then complaining to the rest of us about what is wrong with our culture, our society and our country. There are even those who skillfully criticize and blemish the United States and what it stands for while hiding behind the American flag. It is astonishing. Yet, we all watch and enjoy the show.

Journalists have given way to “Opinionists”. Where a journalist presents factual, empirical evidence from all angels of a story, allowing the viewer, reader or listener to draw their own conclusion, an opinionist merely needs to passionately, and usually loudly (while interrupting someone) state what they believe to be true- even in the conspicuous lack of any evidence backing up the opinion.

We all know these types; we have made them and their venue hugely popular. We like to watch people complain. It is very entertaining.

However each of us must pay attention to the fact that we live in the information age. Much of the information that is out there, which is NOT backed up by empirical evidence, is usually an exaggeration, a misleading bit of information, or an outright lie. Even what may be said by the major networks can not be taken at face value without evidence to back it up.

One must always remember that just because someone wrote it down doesn’t make it true. Just because a man wears a suit and sits behind a desk on television does not mean that he is telling you the whole truth of the situation.

The good news is we live in the information age so we, any of us at any time with a few button clicks, can research any item for factual evidence. It is easy and quick to do; and necessary if we, as a society, are to prevent lies from becoming accepted as truth. To seek truth in all its forms is the most important duty thrust upon the people of any civilized society.

Now, there is the reality that anyone will find “facts” to back up their opinion. That is human nature. People have a natural tendency to look at and acknowledge only those facts that directly support their particular world view. In the process, any factual data contrary to that world view is overlooked or ignored. This is why it is so important that each person use the technologies of the information age to find the facts for themselves, the empirical evidence, to back up what they hear or read.

It is our duty as an ever advancing society to research for ourselves what is and is not true. It is our duty to not trust what we hear and accept it at face value.

There is a simple metric one can use in this day and age to explore the truth in a given story:

1. Empirical evidence: How often is the story relying on evidence presented dispassionately and from all sides to make it’s case? If there is no actual evidence, and only the opinions and statements made from individuals or “experts”, then the claim of the story is probably misleading or untrue.
2. Opinion: Is the story focused on one opinion only and show “facts” which reinforce the claims of that one opinion only? If no opposing side is shown in a story then the creator of the story has a definite agenda to sway the listener / viewer / reader. This means you need to go research this story because it is more than likely not entirely true; or it utilizes half truths and is misleading.
3. Scientific method: Are you, as the recipient of the information, getting the honest truth or a small piece of it; or a distorted piece? I’ll cite an example here. I went to college at San Francisco State University and was in the bay area during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that destroyed several freeways in the area. Two years later there was a big earthquake in Los Angeles, destroying freeways as well. On the national news (I won’t say which channel), a few weeks after the L.A. quake, there was a piece on traffic jams and how it takes such a long time to rebuild the roadways. As an example, the news story showed a recent massive traffic jam on the Dumbarton Bridge, south of the Bay Bridge. They interviewed a driver in his car talking about how crazy the traffic was. The news story went on to say how, two years after the Loma Prieta quake, the San Francisco Bay Area was still in massive traffic jams due to the rebuilding of the highways. This story was not entirely untrue, but it was not entirely true either. The footage they showed of the man in the traffic jam in the car on the Dumbarton Bridge was local footage from a few weeks earlier when a truck had spilled asbestos on the Bay Bridge. As a result the Bay Bridge was closed for a day to clean up the spill, then reopened the following day. So, on the day that footage was shot there were extraordinary traffic jams throughout the area (the Bay Bridge is the main highway across the bay), however that only lasted a day. In reality, the traffic in 1991 in the Bay Area was not nearly as bad as that news cast made it out to be. Was it a lie? No. Was it the truth? No. It was an exaggeration. Was it harmful to exaggerate? In that instance, no. But unless we, the people, pay attention and question what we see the potential is there for harm.

Information is powerful. Thanks to Google and the internet we all can wield that power responsibly for ourselves.

...end ramble...