There is Such a Thing as Truth
If you watch any of the debate shows on television, and I certainly try not to, you are confronted by two or more people arguing about a topic that somehow magically breaks down to two opposing viewpoints. Person A argues for viewpoint A, person B argues for viewpoint B, and the journalist sitting between them puts a big happy bow on it at the end by injecting the idea that the truth lies somewhere in between. How horrible.
The philosophy in the theater of current debate, television or otherwise, is that all opinions are equally valid simply because they belong to someone. This sets up the rules of the game so that any participant can make any statement conceivable simply to shift the middle in their direction, the same middle in which the truth supposedly lies. Any participant will find their viewpoint and interests served well by pulling away from the truth as much as possible, even if what they were defending was the truth to begin with.
The scientific method has been one of the greatest human creations. It is a system for deriving shared truth, truth that can be proven again and again by anyone who endeavors to do so. If you have a belief without proof, it’s a theory. Gather enough evidence, evidence that survives the scrutiny of the method, and you have found some truth. This simple idea has brought us enough truth to cure diseases reliably, to land us on the moon, to show that seat-belts save lives, to show that lead harms children, but it is somehow ignored in the daily discourse of modern debate.
Motive is a difficult thing to derive from those who fight for a viewpoint, but the intended result of their efforts is not. They intend to win. They intend to make their viewpoint or something close to their viewpoint the accepted truth, whether it is true or not. But the journalist in between them doesn’t have a duty to be moderate or unbiased or even kind. The journalist in between them has a duty to the truth. Truth should not be derived from what’s been repeated enough times (“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction“). Truth should not be simply what you have heard or what you believe (“There’s no such thing as global warming“). Truth should not come from those who speak the loudest (“Social Security is in a crises“). Truth should have a bottom line, and that bottom line is proof. If you make statements but offer no testable proof, then it should be a simple matter to show the difference between your statements and the truth. Journalists must be the scientists of modern discourse, the practitioners of truth, and not simply those who conveniently point to the middle.
Truth is not a matter of opinion. Truth does not lie somewhere in between. A fool points to the middle. A journalist finds the truth.
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Comments (3)
Yep, I appreciate this indeed! Of course the scientific method and this analogy is something that rings close to my heart…and drawing the link between politics/public discourse and science.
It’s still a matter of trust for us little guys. How are we suppose to tell whether or not Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction? How can we “prove” it? You either trust our President (ha) or you trust journalists (ha).
So basically if you’re Mike or Christian you just believe anything the left tells you to believe, and you say anyone on the right is ignorant and evil, and that anyone in the middle is a fool. Now I hate Jesus and decency as much as any other pinko, but it can’t be that simple.
What is a weapon of mass destruction anyway? Heck, in Rawanda the machette is a weapon of mass destruction.
I don’t know how anyone could have thought that was a good arguement to invade a country in the first place.
Social Security? Global Warming? Jeez, I think I’m pretty smart, but damn, who the Hell really knows?
As a journalist I completely agree, Christian. And the best journalists are the truth tellers. They dig deep, root around in the dirt, spend time getting to know a subject… Sy Hersh, Bob Woodward. But too much regurgitated crap is passed off as journalism. 24 hours of news on CNN is filled with 720 two minute stories… reports work on deadline filing multiple short stories instead of spending time checking, learning and re-checking the truth for one story.