4 ms·

> there is no such thing as truth This is exactly what people say when they want to re-write the truth to fit their ends. It may be hard to find out what the t

by feoren 4y ago

> there is no such thing as truth This is exactly what people say when they want to re-write the truth to fit their ends. It may be hard to find out what the truth really is, it may even be impossible to get it 100% right, but there is an actual truth of what happened. Denying that gives power to liars.

crazygringo 4y ago
> but there is an actual truth of what happened. In terms of cold hard quantifiable facts -- "X happened" -- yes. But history isn't made of facts. History is made up of interpreting facts to form larger coherent narratives that mean things. It's saying "X happened because Y". It means assigning motivation and goals in the behavior of people and organizations -- all of which is ultimately subjective. It means making judgment calls about which events can be explained as inevitable given historical forces, versus which were essentially random. History isn't about the what, it's about the why. And no, there is no "actual truth" there. There is hopefully a gradually forming consensus, which then sometimes gets overturned decades later in a paradigm shift, then overturned again.
Avicebron 4y ago
There might be objective fact, but without a time machine.. Remember when that meme about the dress went around circa 2015? Whether the dress was gold/white, black/blue? People looked at the same thing and saw different things. In a philosophical sense, history is a lot like that.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > People looked at the same thing and saw different things. However, the dress was an actual dress, which had an actual color. Sometimes it's hard to see what the truth is, but just because people look at the same thing and see different things, doesn't mean all of those things are equally valid.
epolanski 4y ago
I don't want to rewrite anything, but at the end of the day history isn't a mathematical formula whose properties can be definitely verified. History is written by winners, its rewritten and reinterpreted by their descendants and most things cannot be trusted besides some very simple and widely documented "cold facts".
hayst4ck 4y ago
> This is exactly what people say when they want to re-write the truth to fit their ends. The person you are talking to may partake in a pro-fascist ideology, but they probably do not identify as pro-fascist. Empatheticly, the person looks at the world and said "if there was truth then..." and realized that the consequences for truth are never there. In a world where it's true that, for example, Trump tried to sway the Georgian election official, then why aren't there consequences? A rational person would say that means it either must not be true, or that whoever is in power determines the "truth." The third correct alternative idea is so onerous that it is nearly impossible to confront, (1) that there is a truth, (2) that there is a powerful entity trying to deny it, and (3) that there is a personal responsibility to resist or fight it lest you be forced to submit to it. GP says "History is written by winners." GP Doesn't understand that they are a participant in the game of winners and losers and has already accepted submission to those more powerful as a forgone conclusion. So the idea of truth is muddied by the consequences of that truth and the personal responsibility to uphold truth. The person you are responding to isn't evil, they just have not fully explored the consequences of their belief system.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  How exactly do you know what is True when you don't know what you don't know? Most people operate under a subjective interpretation of Truth. For example, take the statement: "China wants accountability for US operating biological weapon facilities in Ukraine." Objectively it's either True or False. Either US had bioweapon facilities in Ukraine or Not. So is it True? If you ask a Chinese person it is. If you Ask an American, it hasn't even crossed their mind. Americans don't even contemplate that this is a sticking point in Chinese/American relations. This information has simply not been told to them. And even if was, and not censored, most would dismiss it as misinformation. So Chinese people and Americans people operate in a world with opposing interpretation of a factual event. There might be objective truth. But people live in a world of subjective interpretation of it.
  - hayst4ck 4y ago
    Timothy Snyder (linked video of his on a post below) talks about this somewhat frequently. Here is an interview in written form: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/9/14838088/donald-trump-fascism-europe-history-totalitarianism-post-truth https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/9/14838088/donald-t... This whole idea we're dealing with now about the alternative facts and post-factuality is pretty familiar to the 1920s. It’s a vision that's very similar to the central premise of the fascist vision. It's important because if you don't have the facts, you don't have the rule of law. If you don't have the rule of law, you can't have democracy. Sociologists say that a belief in truth is what makes trust in authority possible. Without trust, without respect for journalists or doctors or politicians, a society can’t hang together. Nobody trusts anyone, which leaves society open to resentment and propaganda, and of course to demagogues. If a community or country can't hold together horizontally by way of an idea of factuality, then someone comes along vertically with a huge myth, and that person wins. > But people live in a world of subjective interpretation of it. Everyone's subjective truth is not equal. What are the consequences of that? What are the consequences of believing your subjective truth is more authoritative than someone who has spent more time understanding a problem than you or a consensus of such people? What you've described, via subjective truth, is the core ideology of might makes right. If you equate the truths, you are saying that the subjective truths are equal, therefore who can shout the loudest is who can spread their truth. If you believe in objective truth, then it is a clear conclusion that not everyone's subjective truth is equal and you must figure out ways to determine which truths are lower quality. > How exactly do you know what is True when you don't know what you don't know? Contradictions are the one thing we can be confident means something is wrong, so truth can be explored through contradictions. Entities that frequently contradict themselves are bad faith, and that creates a strong indication that their truth is probably not the truth.

by feoren 4y ago

crazygringo 4y ago

> but there is an actual truth of what happened. In terms of cold hard quantifiable facts -- "X happened" -- yes. But history isn't made of facts. History is made up of interpreting facts to form larger coherent narratives that mean things. It's saying "X happened because Y". It means assigning motivation and goals in the behavior of people and organizations -- all of which is ultimately subjective. It means making judgment calls about which events can be explained as inevitable given historical forces, versus which were essentially random. History isn't about the what, it's about the why. And no, there is no "actual truth" there. There is hopefully a gradually forming consensus, which then sometimes gets overturned decades later in a paradigm shift, then overturned again.

Avicebron 4y ago

There might be objective fact, but without a time machine.. Remember when that meme about the dress went around circa 2015? Whether the dress was gold/white, black/blue? People looked at the same thing and saw different things. In a philosophical sense, history is a lot like that.

mcphage 4y ago
> People looked at the same thing and saw different things. However, the dress was an actual dress, which had an actual color. Sometimes it's hard to see what the truth is, but just because people look at the same thing and see different things, doesn't mean all of those things are equally valid.

epolanski 4y ago

I don't want to rewrite anything, but at the end of the day history isn't a mathematical formula whose properties can be definitely verified. History is written by winners, its rewritten and reinterpreted by their descendants and most things cannot be trusted besides some very simple and widely documented "cold facts".

hayst4ck 4y ago

> This is exactly what people say when they want to re-write the truth to fit their ends. The person you are talking to may partake in a pro-fascist ideology, but they probably do not identify as pro-fascist. Empatheticly, the person looks at the world and said "if there was truth then..." and realized that the consequences for truth are never there. In a world where it's true that, for example, Trump tried to sway the Georgian election official, then why aren't there consequences? A rational person would say that means it either must not be true, or that whoever is in power determines the "truth." The third correct alternative idea is so onerous that it is nearly impossible to confront, (1) that there is a truth, (2) that there is a powerful entity trying to deny it, and (3) that there is a personal responsibility to resist or fight it lest you be forced to submit to it. GP says "History is written by winners." GP Doesn't understand that they are a participant in the game of winners and losers and has already accepted submission to those more powerful as a forgone conclusion. So the idea of truth is muddied by the consequences of that truth and the personal responsibility to uphold truth. The person you are responding to isn't evil, they just have not fully explored the consequences of their belief system.

dukeofdoom 4y ago
How exactly do you know what is True when you don't know what you don't know? Most people operate under a subjective interpretation of Truth. For example, take the statement: "China wants accountability for US operating biological weapon facilities in Ukraine." Objectively it's either True or False. Either US had bioweapon facilities in Ukraine or Not. So is it True? If you ask a Chinese person it is. If you Ask an American, it hasn't even crossed their mind. Americans don't even contemplate that this is a sticking point in Chinese/American relations. This information has simply not been told to them. And even if was, and not censored, most would dismiss it as misinformation. So Chinese people and Americans people operate in a world with opposing interpretation of a factual event. There might be objective truth. But people live in a world of subjective interpretation of it.
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  Timothy Snyder (linked video of his on a post below) talks about this somewhat frequently. Here is an interview in written form: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/9/14838088/donald-trump-fascism-europe-history-totalitarianism-post-truth https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/3/9/14838088/donald-t... This whole idea we're dealing with now about the alternative facts and post-factuality is pretty familiar to the 1920s. It’s a vision that's very similar to the central premise of the fascist vision. It's important because if you don't have the facts, you don't have the rule of law. If you don't have the rule of law, you can't have democracy. Sociologists say that a belief in truth is what makes trust in authority possible. Without trust, without respect for journalists or doctors or politicians, a society can’t hang together. Nobody trusts anyone, which leaves society open to resentment and propaganda, and of course to demagogues. If a community or country can't hold together horizontally by way of an idea of factuality, then someone comes along vertically with a huge myth, and that person wins. > But people live in a world of subjective interpretation of it. Everyone's subjective truth is not equal. What are the consequences of that? What are the consequences of believing your subjective truth is more authoritative than someone who has spent more time understanding a problem than you or a consensus of such people? What you've described, via subjective truth, is the core ideology of might makes right. If you equate the truths, you are saying that the subjective truths are equal, therefore who can shout the loudest is who can spread their truth. If you believe in objective truth, then it is a clear conclusion that not everyone's subjective truth is equal and you must figure out ways to determine which truths are lower quality. > How exactly do you know what is True when you don't know what you don't know? Contradictions are the one thing we can be confident means something is wrong, so truth can be explored through contradictions. Entities that frequently contradict themselves are bad faith, and that creates a strong indication that their truth is probably not the truth.