Here’s another stupidity of our society’s proclivity for “unthought”: from the lips of a Fox Mass Media Podperson the phrase, “a higher level of truth.”
That’s right. The idea is abroad in the land that there are levels of truth. True truth, not-so-true truth, almost truth and true in ones own mind truth? Let’s just smack this stupidity down wherever it is encountered. There is truth and not-truth. Period. Truth adulterated by anything not true is either a lie or an unintentional a mistatement against fact. Period. It is not a different form of truth.
True/False is an either/or situation, period. If others’ notes and recordings of a conversation consistently contradict ones recollection of events, then ones recollection is not true, no matter how firmly one believes it to be so. Period. That’s one reason I’m glad I live in a “one party” state, where anyone who is party to a conversation can record that conversation with or without permission from the other parties (unless one is acting in concert with or as an agent of law enforcement, in which case either prior permission or a warrant, etc. is rerquired for recording). And I do carry a pocket recorder any time I feel I may have need of documentation of a conversation. While my recall is excellent, whenever I focus on mentally “recording” events, documentation in the form of a recording of a conversation with a service person, for example, can be a compelling resource in case of discrepancies in recollection.
And the truth (real truth, not some “higher level” of truth) is almost always a perfect defense when falsely accused of anything. Almost. Our society no longer has as great a respect for truth as it once may have… thanks to the spreading of the lie that there are levels of truth.
I certainly agree with your commentary. I would only add the presence of a more or less honest problem we can all fail to consider. Any time we offer information as being true or correct as in ‘to the best of my knowledge and belief the information is true and correct’, blah, blah, blah or simply providing others with ‘data’ or advice the risk of it being invalid for one reason or another is significant.
My point is without personally proving information to be correct we all from time to time offer tidbits that could be flawed. Time and other constraints render strict testing of information impractical beyond some standard of due diligence.
That makes the disclaimer ‘according to’ quite useful. A reminder that the content is subject to revision or debate.
But no such disclaimer seems common in the MSM other than ‘according to unnamed sources’ or a statement received with a promise of anonymity. Adding to that ‘a higher level of truth’ demonstrates the MSM’s longstanding attempt to influence public opinion like the tabloids they are.
It is my belief this is true and correct to the best of my knowledge. 🙂
Related: I once heard someone assert that we never really change our minds about anything, but rather we make new decisions based on new information. Sometimes when dealing with second hand or third hand information, all we can do is test it against what we already have in our possession as well-demonstrated fact and accept it provisionally based on the information at hand as a close approximation of fact, not truth. This is where so many modern pseudo-science dogmatists cause problems, as with adherents of the Church of Anthropogenic Global
WarmingClimate Change (or whatever the latest weasel wording is). Taking a small subset of facts, adding a soupçon of “computer modeling” and calling the results (which cannot “post-dict” previous climates) “truth” is an example of stupidity cubed. Were such people able to process “new” (to them) facts and make new decisions based upon them, the “problem” of AGW would likely disappear.I once had an issue with my supervisors for holding fast to the line that everything can eventually be broken down into black or white, truth being white and false being black. They kept on with the notion that everything is a shade of gray somewhere in between. This is called rationalization, not truth. We never did agree from that point on.
Omg – just happened upon your random rambling website that you did with Richard and I really want you to consider posting on it. It was interesting!!!!
Why, “Michael”? So you can scrape more posts from it?
interesting piece..but why don’t their distortions surprise me?..:)and HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU..my friend!:)