Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: February 4, 2003
Latest Update: February 4, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

On Truth and Truth-Telling and Reality

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, February 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on Robert Scheer's column. Do read the column, as the discussion questions make constant reference to it.

This column offers a good chance to examine "truth telling" and what we mean by that. Given postmodernism, and most of us, even in the academy, have come to accept that some sense of postmodernism adheres to our current social issues. Killing is no longer socially acceptable throughout the whole of any particular society. Most societies recognize some stong primal need for community. Most of us understand the inherent injustice of dominating and subordinating Others whom we have excluded from our core societies. Given these postmodern changes, truth is perceived differntly through our respected lived experiences.

Legal truth is the truth suggested by the trier of fact's findings of the facts of a case. The trier of fact (judges or juries) might be wrong. They may believe someone who lies well. Think of Scheer's suggestion that Colin Powell is well trained at swallowing lies. That's not a moral charge. That's a summation of the military rule of obeying the commands of one's leader. So is that lying the same as an individual's telling a little white fib, a big white lie?

Objective truth cannot exist, except from the situatedness in which it occurs. A chair is a chair is a chair, and that's not socially constructed reality. You try ignoring that chair, and you'll fall over it in the world out there. Try jumping off the roof of a tall building and flying. You'll go squash, and probably not live to tell about it. Gravity isn't socially constructed. We can't socially construct a reality that says we can fly, without a flying vehicle, at least. So there is some "reality" out there. And those who study that reality become impatient with those of us who talk about socially constructed reality. But truth like legal truth is socially constructed. Testimony could be true or false, and the trier of fact could be right or worng in his/her determination of what the truth was. But once the trier of fact gives a verdict, the legal truth considers only that version of the interpretation of the facts.

So the world is all mixed up with truth that is socially constructed and truth that is impervious to our social transactions. If Saddam Hussein has a nuclear bomb, he has a nuclear bomb. That's truth out there. But what our intelligence agencies, our generals, our intuitive senses, our patriotic wishes and fantasies, what all those sources tell us is socially constructed truth. And that really does get all mixed up with the reality out there.

We have also learned that we have a tendency to see the world in the way we have come to expect it to be, in the way that we as a society have socially constructed that world. When we've all come to see the world as flat, scientists have had a hard time convincing us that its really a sphere. Remember Galileo and Copernicus? So one really good reason for considering the social construction of truth, at least that part that we get to socially construct, like race and governance and market economy, is that we discover that our social constructions have far more fluid possibilities than we'd ever considered. China's Yangtzee River overflowed its banks each year and caused great harm. People thought that that was just the way it was. Then new technology offered the possibility of damning the waters, making the river navigable, and ending some of the horrific losses from flooding. Social construction of truth was finding a way to readapt to the out there reality of those elements over which we really had no control.

Although sometimes those who disagree with us seem to be just plain ornery and not too bright, taking the trouble to truly listen to them can spark new ideas of seeing the world and learning to live more comfortable within it In the following discussion, I'm going to try to point out some of this theory in Robert Scheer's column.

Theoretical concepts you'll want to keep in mind for linking:

truth and "knowingness" - Postmodern recognition that we cannot "know." Not even in sub-atomic physics. For information becomes available to us only over time.

social construction - We learn concepts of "right" and "wrong," "socially acceptable" and "not socially acceptable," fat, lazy, good-for-nothing all from our daily lived exeriences. That's how we learn race, too. There is in reality no scientific difference between the races. Races are socially constructed. So if we constructed it one way, I suppose we could construct it another way.

If we see war with Iraq the only way to deal with Saddam, and that is a socially constructed conclusion, not controlled by gravity or the speed of light, or such physical barriers, then we ought to be able to find another socially constructed conclusion that would not include war. Of course, we're used to violence and war as solutions, so it would take a lot of creativity, and lots and lots of illocutionary discourse to keep us from killing ourselves in the process of discussions seeking a peaceful solution.

Discussion Questions

1. What assumption is Robert Scheer making in the first paragraph of his column about military rules and morality?

   Consider that in combat situations it is important that order prevail so that actions will be coordinated. War is messy. Collateral damage and friendly fire are examples of just how messy. Consider that in such chaos, one plausisble solution is that orders be strictly obeyed on the theory that the command at each higher level has a better picture of the whole than does the lower level, focused more on local action. Why would this lead Scheer to say that Powell will perform as George Bush, Jr. requires? "His military career has prepared him well to execute the orders of his commander in chief, no matter what his doubts as to their morality, efficacy or logic."

   Consider the "just following orders" excuses at Nuremberg and elsewhere, and then consider the Sheer's reference to "swallowing big lies."

2. Is Dubya lying? Does Scheer make that assumption? Are there people who believe that Dubya's not lying about the complexity of the Iraq situation? Are there people who are hoping that Dubya's not lying, and meanwhile trying to carry on as though he's not? Figure Powell fits there?

   Consider our discussions on "right" and "wrong" and our recognition that there is no single definitive social truth from all legitimate perspectives. So, what then does "lying" mean?

3. Scheer, in the next few paragraphs, suggests that Colin Powell does see the situation clearly.

   "

   It took two decades for Powell, in his autobiography "My American Journey," to acknowledge that all the destruction brought down upon Indochina by the U.S. was based on an uneducated, unfocused and enormously costly policy that he and other military leaders had known to be "bankrupt."

   But duty, apparently, required they not tell the public the truth.

   "War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support," he wrote, summarizing Vietnam's lessons."

   Can you explain Powell's conclusion that military leaders were "bankrupt?" How does that fit with the rule of following orders? Even bankrupt orders? And from whose perspective does Powell speak? To what "duty" does Scheer refer in saying that "they" must not tell the public the truth? Why not? Does Powell, according to Scheer's review of his autobiography, agree that the public should not be told the truth?

4. Can you help Shaheen translate her comment inot the terms of truthtelling here, as they are represented by Scheer and Powell?