What is Truth and What is True

By Greg Kogler

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” — Søren Kierkegaard

What is truth? The question being asked is not a philosophical one. It’s an actual question, as in, what is true and how do we know it is indeed true? Is something true because it is factual? Or is something true because we believe it to be so? Maybe truth is the collective acceptance of information as fact regardless of any evidence to support the given belief. What is truth and what is true?

I suppose we could start by looking at several definitions of truth. What about these?

• Merriam-Webster’s defines truth as the body of real things, events, and facts; actuality, the state of being the case, a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true, the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality, fidelity to an original or to a standard.

• Websters 1913 dictionary defines truth as, “The quality or being true; conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been; or shall be.”It further goes on to use other words in its definition such as, fidelity; constancy; steadfastness; faithfulness, and veracity and verity.A later definition is: “a true thing; a verified fact; a true statement or proposition; an established principle, fixed law, or the like; as, the great truths of morals.

• Wikipedia defines truth at length and states, “Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. Truth is usually held to be the opposite of falsehood.

Looking at the multiple definitions does highlight similarities, but across the board gaps remain when distilling down to an easily grasped and functional use of the word. While I generally agree with all these definitions or explanations of the word, it still feels clunky.

What about the etymology of the word? Etymology is simply defined by the Cambridge dictionary as, “the study of the origin and history of words, or a study of this type relating to one particular word.”

The etymology of the word truth brings forward some interesting historical relevance which may help answer our question as to what truth is:

• The Online Etymology Dictionary, in part, says the word truth is from the Old English triewð (West Saxon), treowð (Mercian) which mean "faith, faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty; veracity, quality of being true; pledge, covenant," from Germanic abstract noun *treuwitho, from Proto-Germanic treuwaz "having or characterized by good faith.” The ”Sense of ‘something that is true’ is first recorded mid-fourtheenth century...[the] meaning "accuracy, correctness" is from 1560s."

In all of the definitions of truth and in the etymology of the same word we come away with an understanding that truth is something that is real or actual; it is the state of something being the case and in accord with fact; something that is the opposite of false; it has veracity or adherence to reality, it is characterized by good faith; it is sourced from an established law or fixed principle.

In short, truth is the collection or assembly of things that are real, that are measured against some objective standard and identified as consistent with the measure. Truth is verifiable, and it is both grown from and anchored to reality. And at its best, truth is shared in good faith, with no intent to deceive, manipulate, or coerce.

You may not want to accept this definition of truth. Maybe you and the rest of us can’t handle the idea of being required to conform to reality and instead we’ll insist on being allowed to live our own version of truth. That’s fine, but no matter what we believe or how much we demand others join in our “belief,” we are simply ignoring the facts which surround us and living on the fantasy planet, “My Truth.”

I came across a 2018 blog post by writer Sam Holstein titled, “There is no such thing as ‘My Truth.’” In her post she refutes the idea of there being any real thing such as, “my truth.” She writes:

“This misuse of the word truth creates a problem when people do want to speak of objective truth. If all our words appeal to a subjective reality, we will lack the language of objectivity when we need to drill down to the truth. Our hands will be tied.

It’s an admirable quality to state your opinion and stick by it. But when you twist the definition of truth to imply that you have an unarguable position, you’re abusing the English language.”

Candidly, I agree with her position. There is no such thing as your truth or my truth. To state that we have an individual truth and purport it as fact simply because we have declared it as truth is a gross and deceitful elevation of a personal belief to the level of actuality but without any foundational facts or historical precedence to support it. So it is, at best, an unproven, but possibly still true statement, or at worst, lunacy or ignorance wrapped in the passionate conviction of false belief.

I worked in law enforcement for many years and conducted an untold number of investigations. I always had an idea of what happened, and at times, even held a belief about what occurred. The reality, however, was my belief about the circumstances of the investigation were irrelevant unless verifiable and irrefutable facts were developed that reinforced my “hypothesis” about the crime we were trying to solve.

If I had “a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation (bing.com),” I would need to hold onto it loosely until more facts began to shape the reality of what happened.

In other words, I couldn’t simply state something akin to conjecture and then make decisions based on what I wanted to believe. If I had, I would have been discredited and likely prosecuted for allowing my personal conviction to justify the professional action I took. No way would I do that!

I had to set aside my personal theory about what transpired and doggedly pursue evidence. I had to find information I could verify as true and let the evidence or facts direct us to lawful conclusions which then allowed us to take action. My belief didn’t matter one hoot if the evidence didn’t support it, and no judge or jury was ever going to accept me stating “My Truth” in a court of law. And they never should.

We are living in a dangerous time where actuality is frequently being replaced with things like “possibility”, “theoretically”, alternative information, lies, mischaracterizations of real information, or just utter nonsense. OK…take a deep breath before this next sentence…You know, the kind of thing someone says that no one believes but is so ridiculous it shouldn’t even need a rebuttal but because all of us don’t call horse-puckey on it the ridiculous and patently false statement all of a sudden becomes true? And yes, the lack of punctuation in the last sentence was intentional. You should be out of breath.

We find ourselves living during an ominous cultural phenomenon where important and very impactful decisions are made by people who ignore or don’t know the truth (research is so hard after all), and we accept those decisions as true because we either don’t care enough to push back or are too ignorant to know we are being fed a mouthful of lies.

Want some examples? Electric everything, everywhere, right now or no alternative energy at any time. Ever!?!? How about let’s believe everyone is a good person and suspend or end the criminal justice system and pretend dystopia is our new utopia? Or let’s put everyone in jail for anything because it’s what the law says even though the law does account for mitigating circumstances (mind you, real ones…not fabricated ones).

Maybe it’s the belief that certain foreign countries are always truthful with us and would never intend to do us harm? Or we should always attack first, you know, just in case. Oh wait, my political party is perfect, and they will save us all even though we know both political parties have disastrous and verifiable records creating more mess than solution.

We wrap ourselves in the warm blanket of what we prefer to believe, accept what we’re told, and then decide it’s time for us to help others see the world the way we do. We begin proselytizing this “new truth” that we ourselves don’t fully understand and have no care if what we are repeating is factual or even makes sense.

It’s becoming the gospel messenger of our own confirmation bias. We shut off our intellect and run with the message because we believe. We become fools cheering the “not-naked” emperor while believing we are the enlightened ones who patiently tolerate the ignorant masses and that silly child saying the emperor really is naked.

Our “enlightened” belief is enough to draw us in to a contrarian or false version of reality, and we look for “our people” or fellow acolytes and get sucked into the dynamic of group polarization. We’ve found who we like because they say what we like to hear. We become a soldier for the cause and move beyond sharing what we “believe” to determining anyone who doesn’t share our belief is now our enemy. We give them one choice: accept our belief, or else.

We castrate truth on the altar of our collective cultural ignorance and laziness and hold up a now sterile and deformed version of the original so that we can define lies, bogus facts, and bad-faith intent as the “new” truth or “My Truth.” A truth we must all agree to.

And when we do this, we destroy noble concepts like tolerance (and I mean real tolerance in the actual definition of the word rather than the ridiculous current use of it. Dictionary.com defines tolerance as, “A fair, respectful, and permissive attitude or policy toward people whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one’s own or from those of the majority; freedom from bigotry and from an insistence on conformity.”).

We end up moving away from truth and embracing everything that leads us into the very things we claim we are trying to fix. Things like disorder, disunity, confusion, anger, violence, and injustice. We become the sarcastic, nasally voice in the room which says, “Hey, it makes sense, injustice inflicted upon others to fix injustice is actually justice if you will just accept what I’ve been telling you all long.”

We replace tolerance with conformity and value agendas more than community. Idealism and activism stomp down on reality, and when forced political solutions explode in our faces we jump with indignation and claim failure was the result of racism or sexism or ageism or colonialism or any other ism…even the “isms” we invent. All of this while truth says maybe it was just a dumb idea? And again, we create more disorder, disunity, confusion, anger, and violence. Yay?

We punish disagreement even though it is often a vital ingredient in finding real truth. Truth Alert! … I can disagree with you and not be a racist, hate-monger, bigot, nazi, or any other pejorative currently in favor. Why? Because I don’t hate anyone, but I will disagree with a lot of folks whose insistence that I accept what they believe also demands I forego my own beliefs. That’s not tolerance. I think we would call it a forced conversion to the idol of invented truth and I won’t kneel to that god.

So what do we do? It’s simple to write or say, but much more difficult to implement. We simply must begin to say what is actually true, and when we’re not certain, we must make time to learn so we know we are indeed speaking what is objectively correct.

We must refute or push back against things we know are clearly not true, and when unsure, we must also be good at listening, asking clarifying questions, and thoughtfully responding with careful words rather than simply putting people on blast. Instead of smashing people in the face with our version of the “truth,” we should share our perspective or experience with others. If you do smash someone in the face all you end up with is a fight, but when you say, “this is my perspective,” or, “my experience tells me,” you open the door to a conversation.

We must reject any effort to coerce us into accepting, or appearing to accept an agenda that compromises truth. Instead, we must be willing to show grace during potentially unfair or unjust treatment while we stand for what we know is right and continue to speak what is true.

We will need to come to the defense of those who suffer for standing up for the truth, and in the process, be willing to join them when the cultural goblins begin to swarm. Even when the people we stand with represent a group we don’t typically associate with. After all, no group, party, agenda, or anything else has a monopoly on truth, and ignoring the mistreatment of a person or group because they are finally “getting what they deserve” will only allow a bogus narrative to grow and inevitably come back to haunt us when someone else wields the big stick and thinks differently than we do.

The only way we get out of where we’re at as a culture is to force ourselves to stop existing only within circles where everyone always agrees with us. We must be willing to demonstrate grace, engage with other people who see things differently, and re-learn how to have thoughtful and mature conversations where learning happens. When we don’t know something, we must set our opinion aside and go learn about it even when we may not like what we discover.

If we cannot recapture our ability to be friends and have relationships with those who don’t think like us then we have no hope of ever influencing anyone, and we will never be open to being changed by them either. Instead, we will continue down our current dangerous path, ever-more dehumanizing anyone who contradicts us, and ultimately arriving at the point where they are now are enemies and can be disposed of.

And then what do we have? What will you have? Take a moment and really, really think about this. What will we have? Who will we have lost? What price will we have paid? Even though you stand victorious on top of a destroyed culture, will you then, regretfully, realize how wrong we all were and how we believed so many false things thinly polished over as truth? Will you then, belatedly, wish you had taken the time to honestly answer the questions of what is truth, and what is true?