Truths of various colours

You have your truth and I have mine. There shouldn’t be a problem – until someone lies. Unfortunately, lying has been elevated as a virtue in present India.

There are all sorts of truths, some of which are irrefutable. As a friend said the other day with a little frustration, the eternal truth is this: No matter how many times you check, the Wi-Fi will always run fastest when you don’t actually need it – and collapse the moment you’re about to hit Submit. Philosophers call it irony. Engineers call it Murphy’s Law. The rest of us just call it life.

Life is impossible without countless such truths. Consider the following;

·      Change is inevitable.

·      Mortality is universal.

·      Actions have consequences. [Even if you may seem invincible, your karma will catch up, just wait.]

·      Water boils at 100^oC under normal atmospheric pressure.

·      The three angles of a triangle always sum up to 180 degrees.

·      The disorder in the universe keeps increasing. [Science calls that truth entropy.]

You can’t question such truths. They are universal. Eternal too, I dare say.

Then there are what we may call Authoritative Truths, those which come from scriptures, traditions, and such venerated places. Consider the following:

·      The earth was created by God for the sake of humans. [Abrahamic religions]

·      The Vedas are eternal and infallible.

·      Prophet Muhamad is the final messenger of God.

These may or may not be truths for you depending on which religion you believe in. For me, all the three are false. Yet, for millions of people one or the other is true. The problem with these truths is that they can blind people to real truths. They can also engender conflicts and strife.

Reasoned truths would be the ideal answers to the above problem. These are truths arrived at through logic, philosophy, and rational debates. I know that reason alone doesn’t satisfy us humans. We are highly emotional and quite a bit imaginative too. Most of us can’t live without our gods, demons, and fairies. Personally, I keep these esoteric entities confined to fiction.

Fiction gives us some of the best truths, which we may call Creative truths. Art, literature, and other imaginative works can reveal emotional and existential truths. I love such truths. They are far more valid than any authoritative truth for me.

Then there are Relative truths, those shaped by culture, perspective, context, etc. These have limited relevance and may not be as dangerous as authoritative truths.

Moral truths teach us how to live better lives, based on ethics and values. They are necessary for peaceful, harmonious existence. But hardly anyone seems to care for them nowadays. Those who care seriously may find themselves in prisons, especially in contemporary India.

Power truths tower above all the above truths, especially in countries governed by narcissistic dictators who pretend to be the most benign (if not divine) universal do-gooders. Propaganda and manipulation forge truths in such countries. I live in a country where lies are far more dominant now. And those lies are all Power truths.

If you wish to read more about the above truths, go to Julian Baggini’s slim book, A Short History of Truth: Consolations for a Post-Truth World (2017).

PS. Illustrations by Copilot Designer