The Offensive Truth: Remembrance Sunday

In a week where we see the first black president elected, on the day three Islamic militant men were put in front of a firing squad and executed (for the October 12th,2002 Bali bombings) and during the two minutes silence for Remembrance Sunday - Truth seems a good subject to think about. 

Why does the truth offend? 

I have always been someone who believes in truth and felt safe in the fact that my truth has been based on facts and often been close to the actual truth. Lately, I have on occasion been wrong and come to question that safety. Trying to get into Journalism 'the truth' seems an important area to explore in myself, people and the world. Have people created truth? or is truth something we are trying to grasp a hold of? If we go down the line that everybodys truth is different then how can there be any truth? What is truth? Is it fact, reality, commonly held belief, certainty? 

The Oxford English and Cambridge Dictionaries record truth to mean ...

1 the quality or state of being true 

2 (also the truth) that which is true as opposed to false (mmm helpful) 

3 a fact or belief that is accepted as true. 4 the facts about a situation, place or person. 

A fact is defined as ... Something which is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information. 

So even the Dictionary doesn't, for me, exactly define truth - even fact uses that which is known, going back to the truth being something the human race holds within itself. For example climate change - 'global warming' either is or isn't happening to this planet, people are desperately trying to prove it either way. The truth we know today will be different to the truth we know in 50 years time. So even what we define as facts or truth are not always accurate when put under the test of time.  After all, the world used to be flat. 

So back to why does the truth offend...  

The truth has consequences (good or bad).  It can be used to allocate blame or show the darker side of society/a person. Sometimes the truth offends because it can expose people or their illusions, what they have done or said. The truth defends action and opinion. 

Regardless of its positivity or negativity the truth asks us to change our thoughts and behaviour. Is it wrong to kill? My mind says yes, but I am behind and support the brave men and women who have fought and are fighting in HM Forces. If we say it is wrong to kill where does that leave our soldiers fighting and dying in wars abroad? 

Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D. said, "You can only find truth if you seek it for yourself, for the truths of history are the truths of others. But truth is like a mirage in the desert. For us, the task is not to chase the truth, but to create it. Truth is a stance, an act of power that you bring to all your actions. Truth is what the person of knowledge brings to every moment". 

http://www.thefourwinds.com/about-alberto-villoldo.htm

This isn't meant to be conclusive, just a few thoughts.  In the main, all I can conclude is the truth seems ever changing and all I can do is to strive to ensure the information I hold as my truth is as informed as it can be at the time and encourage those who enforce, report or print the truth to do the same. 

A last note on truth ...  

be careful what you think, it can become what you know, 

be careful what you know, it can become what you say,

be careful what you say, it can become what you do, 

be careful what you do, it becomes your destiny. 

Weblinks to online dictionaries:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5114539.ece 

(Execution just after Midnight, Java. Nov 9th, 2008. Just after 5pm UK. Nov 8th, 2008) 

www.askoxford.com/?view=uk

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/