TRUTH

In controversies with other people, we frequently find that a point is reached at which any further discussion is unprofitable, each party talking past the other in mutual incomprehension. On such occasions, it is tempting to regard the other as being willfully bullheaded, and sometimes it is so, (I've done it before) but more frequently, both simply lack a context which allows the other to make sense; it's like listening to someone speaking a language with which we are completely unfamiliar. The sounds are mixed up in an order that is unintelligible to us. Others who speak our language do so with such different stress and inflection that it is hard to understand. In saying this, I'm certainly not advancing a philosophy of relativism; one can be completely familiar with the philosophy of your interlocutor, spot the error without difficulty, and be completely right in doing so. Even so, you are left with the problem of how to communicate this in a way they will understand.

There is a point at which productive discourse can take place, and that is at the very point at which the two viewpoints diverge. In talking to almost anyone, there is a point up to which we agree, but after that, our ideas separate. That is the point which needs to be examined; argue very far away from that point, and you are arguing from different assumptions. What irrational prejudice, what rooted dislikes, what kind of intensely personal experiences cause one person to zig and the other to zag at the point of departure? The answers can sometimes be truly illuminating. Progress can sometimes be made by tracing the idea to see, after all, where it truly leads, or what kind of intellectual universe it springs from. Many carry ideas around in their heads that would horrify them if they knew what gave it birth. Compare the growth of ideas to the growth of a tree; branches continually spreading away from the trunk, dividing again and again; it is always possible to find one's way back to the trunk, and hence to the root, by tracing your way laboriously down the branch, exploring each intersection and mapping the complicated networks and tangles of twigs springing from different branches, perhaps originating from the other side of the tree, or even from different trees. Confusion results mainly from false congruences and false dichotomies; two leaves seen growing side by side are usually assumed to be closely related. Perhaps a trained botanist will be able to tell at a glance that these leaves seen presently in such near proximity are in fact from two different kinds of trees; others without such sensitivity have to work laboriously to the same conclusion. Other leaves positioned on opposite sides of the arboreal universe may be demonstrated to be of the same branch. Obviously, this gets complicated; it might seem that there is some justification for those who say either that there is no Truth, or that Truth must remain forever unknown to us. In ultimate things, I consider this indeed to be the case; I have long considered the most sensible thing one can say about the Universe is that, barring revelation from a higher power, man can know nothing certainly about the nature of the universe, and hence ultimately lacks the key to the understanding of his own being. The long search for Human-centered certainty which is Modern philosophy seems certainly to have foundered at this point; most have by now abandoned ship, and the few determined diehards appear more ridiculous with each passing year, but I also believe that, in Itself, Truth is simple. In the clear empyrean which is its true home, it burns as a radiant energy, flashing forth from the Throne of God on its missions of Justice and Mercy; but as it enters the phenomenal realm, its beam is somewhat diffracted, and as this pure white light enters the prism of the human mind, it is broken into all the colors of the rainbow, and then human beings seek to use Truth to promote their own interests, manufacturing truths from Truth, (Truth itself being regarded only as a source for the mining of convenient facts) suppressing some, and enhancing others. Looking for Truth in the currents of human opinion is like walking down a hall of funhouse mirrors, the twisted glass throwing back your image in every grotesque distortion imaginable. Some even become haters of Truth, seeking to uproot and destroy every evidence of it in the human heart, fabricating and disseminating false truths with which to fill the void.

Consequently, we dwell in an atmosphere of confusion; finding Truth is not hopeless, but it is complicated, and the only point at which we can truly address differing opinions is to find the point where two branches diverge; then, with labor, truth can indeed be demonstrated, falsity shown absurd in the light of its own disastrous logic, but this, of course, takes time. Modern people are typically too busy to remember, let alone think, so of course the temptation is to forgo any rigorous examination of their core assumptions, and adopt a sort of "soundbite philosophy" composed of bits and pieces (many of them contradictory) formed of the sweepings of popular culture. They typically won't take time to examine this collage, and can't defend any part of it, but they can vividly dislike those who point out their contradictions, and they do.

I am not primarily talking about uneducated people here; simple people approach truth at a much more basic level, and are often right where their more sophisticated brethern are wrong. I used to think I operated on a higher plane of truth than my parents, (one of the many things that kept me from accessing the parental wisdom) but found as I matured that many of the things I had rejected as excessively simpleminded were, quite simply, true; these truths were inarticulable by those who had my training in their hands, but true nonetheless. Had I been a less arrogant young man, I might have been able to access these silently held, but profound truths.

So the possession of truth and the articulation of truth are different things, but polemics (not a dirty word in my vocabulary) has to do with the convincing of those who have a different view, and that involves the articulation of truth, and that involves forming a fairly clear mental picture of what Truth actually is. Here I return to the analogy of the forest with intent to refine it a bit. Originally, I said that the entire forest was not rooted in anything; now I am going to say it is only our tree which is uprooted, and that it is being supported on all sides by living trees, whose branches are so intertwined with those of our tree that it is difficult to tell which leaves belong to which tree. Uprooted and malnourished as it is, our world is yet interpenetrated and upheld by truths which come from a different universe. A leaf growing right beside another may be from the other side of the spiritual and intellectual Cosmos. There is one profound difference between these leaves; one is living, and the other is dying. A little space of time will demonstrate for all to see which is which; in the meantime, all the leaves have the appearance of health, and to the undiscerning eye all appear to be of the same tree.

The pursuit of Truth involves sorting out the eternal from the transient. One adept at such things might be able to say immediately that this is an oak leaf, and the one beside it is a maple, but he will be hard-pressed to convince his less-discerning fellows of this unless they will undertake the labor of following the branches; typically, they will just stubbornly argue the point, most likely munching on acorns the entire time.

At this point, (If not long before) the insistent relativist will have broken in, saying with his usual benign smile and air of all-knowingness "Ah, but there are many paths to the top of the mountain, my child". It is a point worth considering. First of all, it may be so that there are many paths to the top of the mountain; at any rate, it certainly can be approached from many trajectories, but what an infinitude of other possible routes there are which lead away from the mountain entirely? Would it not behoove one who wished to reach the top of the mountain to at least ascertain what direction the path they are on is pointing in, and not just assume that any old path will do? Furthermore, even if it is possible that there is more than one path up the mountain, could it not be possible that there is only one safe path, and that, in the case of a peak of insurmountable difficulty, the only possible path may be the one that was blasted out of the side of the precipice in order to make the ascent at all possible. As a matter of fact, most mountains I am familiar with do have only one path to the top; it is there because thousands of people have found that this is the best route to the top of the mountain. I doubt if the person who coined the phrase had any experience with mountaineering. Years of knocking heads with these people has convinced me that relativism is the first, last, and only refuge of the intellectually lazy; it wears an appearance of wisdom, and of broad magnanimity, but is really remarkably foolish, and about the most narrow-minded thing there is going, and there's really no way to penetrate the smug superiority of those who hold this view, for it comforts them with the feeling that they are the ones who have seen through everything, when most commonly they are only the ones who have failed to look.