What Happened to Plain Old Truth?
“That might be true for you, but it’s not my truth.” “You do you, I’ll do me.” “Whatever floats your boat.” You’ve probably heard these things said before. Perhaps you were even the one speaking. The advice takes many different forms, but the core idea is the same: truth isn’t a hard and fast rule that applies to all people. People today will often suggest that truth depends on our experiences or on our personal preferences, rather than having the same rigidity as a hard fact.
In recent years, speaking about truth in this way has become popular, and there’s a reason for this. It’s simply easier. In a world with a lot of conflicting ideas and philosophies, it’s difficult to sort out fact from fiction. It’s simply easier to take what’s presented as the “higher road” and affirm that everyone’s equally right.
After all, we’ve been trained (appropriately) that we should respect other people despite their differences. This is a helpful principle. But we have also been trained that there’s really just one acceptable way to show that respect. We’re told that it would be arrogant to believe that one person’s convictions could be right and another person’s convictions could be wrong. Thus, the way to legitimately respect them, supposedly, is to affirm that their convictions are true “for them,” and to assert, far more modestly, that our convictions are merely true “for us.”
Unintended Consequences
It would initially seem that this practice would promote mutual respect and peace in society. But it actually does the opposite. If “my truth” is only true for me, and “your truth” is only true for you, then there’s no reason I should care about what you think – or what anybody thinks. If there’s no real truth that we’re all accountable to, can I even affirm there’s a universal requirement for me to respect other people’s beliefs? If there’s no right way that you and I need to find, why would I ask rational questions to find information when I can just whimsically assert my own personal dogmas? If there’s no true truth, people don’t need to demonstrate the intelligence or nobility of their perspectives. They simply have to push their agendas through emotional appeals, manipulative newspaper headlines, and public demonstrations of outrage.
Abandoning the realness and objectivity of truth hasn’t made our society more peaceful. Our society has become more polarized, public discussions have grown more contentious, and relationships have become more fractured. People are not incentivized to respect “your truth,” because at the end of the day, it has been reduced to merely being “your opinions” or “your experience.” People have just become more arrogant in their positions, more belligerent toward their opponents, and more confused about what really matters in life.
Truth in the Real World
And, honestly, this philosophy of “your truth” versus “my truth” doesn’t fit well into the natural world we live in. If a doctor runs tests and determines that we have cancer, we can’t escape from the realness of the diagnosis by holding to a different “truth.” Either there is cancer, in reality, or there isn’t. Similarly, if a little boy is convinced that he has monsters in his closet, you won’t waste time trying to figure out whether or not that’s “his truth.” Rather, you’ll do what you can to demonstrate, in reality, there are no monsters in his closet. The paradigm here is a matter of truth versus falsehood.
I would argue that this same paradigm applies to all our life situations, even matters of experience and belief. It’s true that two people may witness the same situation yet have different interpretations of that situation. We can affirm that Person A truly has Interpretation A, and that Person B has interpretation B. But there’s no inherent reason we would assume that both interpretations are equally correct – especially when the content of those interpretations contradict each other. Instead, we should be prepared to affirm that there’s a single, true reality that all people are bound by. My interpretation is true, only insofar as it corresponds to what is actual. We aren’t inventing a fantasy world of our own making, but are embodied in a literal, logical universe with real features and constraints that must be reckoned with.
A Search for Truth
I want to appeal to you, in light of this, to take life seriously. Look for real answers to real questions, rather than latching on to ideas that seem convenient or sound good. The truth may not always be convenient. The truth may not always meet your expectations or sound pleasant. But the beautiful thing about truth is that it doesn’t change like our desires and preferences change. The truth is solid. It’s real. It’s reliable. Even if public opinion changes, even if the economy tanks, even if the person who taught it to you turns out to be a scumbag – the truth is still truth.
Be sure, too, that you don’t dismiss religion as being irrelevant, or being a matter of opinion. Religion isn’t merely a matter of personal experience, but actual reality. Either there is a God who made us, who we’ve ignored and rejected with our narcissistic ambitions, who we will be judged by, or there is no such God. Either Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our crimes and to reconcile us to God, or He didn’t. These things are either really true for all real people in all real places, or they are false. I would contend that the good news of Christianity is factual and historically rooted, and something you should look into.
But in any case, my hope is that you’ll take the time to actually dig into the big questions of life. Let’s learn to think deeply. Because reality is real, whether we want it to be or not.
