Speaking the Inconvenient Truth

Fall in Colorado

Speaking the Inconvenient Truth

The phrase “inconvenient truth” was made part of the public language in 2007 when Al Gore published a book by that name to warn the public about global warming.  But is has been part of our lives since we first began to communicate with other hunters and gatherers.  I would imagine that is was hard for “Rock” to tell the tribe that the red berries they had been eating all Summer were the reason for their being tired and unable to hunt.  It was very difficult for Galileo to stand up to the Roman Catholic Church and declare that the Sun, not the earth was the center of the solar system.  It was difficult for the South to come to terms with the immorality of holding people in slavery.  It was hard for the German people to admit that the promises of Adolf Hitler were only a cover for a far more sinister future.  The inconvenience factor of truth is one signs that we need to pay attention to and heed its warnings.  In this blog I will explore the role that inconvenient truths play in our lives. 

When I was in Seminary an Old Testament Professor of mine asked his class a simple question.  “How do we know if a person is a prophet or not?”  The class of “theological toddlers” came up with all kinds of convoluted ways to discern the true prophet from the false prophet.  Some involved biblical tests of purity while others engaged in some strange mixture of clairvoyance and mysticism.  After the class spent a good deal of time arguing and fantasizing about the issues, Dr. Stewart cleared his throat.  This never failed to bring the discussion to a stop.  All ears were prepared for a booming pronouncement of truth.  Instead, the Prof offered a little smile and gently spoke, saying, “You can tell if someone is a prophet if what they say comes true.”  We sat in stunned silence. 

I suggest that we can use a person’s willingness to declare an inconvenient truth as a sign that they might be a prophet.  We can only know for sure if the inconvenient truth becomes an inconvenient fact!  The sweep of human history has been blessed by quite a few people who were willing to announce inconvenient truths.  A few have turned out to be prophets, people who speak for something greater than themselves and beyond their own tiny view of the world.  They announce a truth that is hidden beneath centuries of prejudice, socially accepted assumptions, and self-serving beliefs.  In the short-term we cannot tell the prophet from the charlatan.  But in the next few paragraphs I hope to share some thoughts on ways that we can better understand inconvenient truths and discern, as best we can, those who speak them and those who speak of something less than the truth.

What is an inconvenient truth?

I want to be clear what I mean by the phrase “inconvenient truth.”  Separately the words are commonly used and are, for the most part, easily accepted.  But when we put them together, problems arise.  I want to deal with these as individual words first. Then, I will try and define the phrase when the two words come together.

Inconvenient is, according to Merriam-Webster, an adjective that is “not convenient, especially in giving trouble or annoyance.”  According to the Oxford Dictionary, inconvenient is an adjective that causes trouble, difficulties, or discomfort.  The word is traced back to the Latin for not agreeing or fitting in.

We use the adjective to communicate our discomfort with something.  If a neighbor asks to come over for a cup of coffee and the house is a mess, we simply say that a visit would be inconvenient rather than saying, “I’m a slob and I do not want you to see just how dirty my house really is.”   If we read that a cold front will be coming through and mess up our weekend plans, we will likely change the plans while resenting just how inconvenient this “weather thing” can be.   When we get sick and have to stay in bed rather than be up and about, we may become upset at the unfairness and inconvenience of illness.  When the annoying becomes the troublesome, difficult, or discomforting, our anger and/or denial become more apparent.  As the “temperature” of our response rises, so does our voice in expressing our displeasure.  Inconvenience is simply part of a life that has to make adjustments to other people and experiences.  We may not like the word, but we can generally accept it and use it to describe our experience.  This is not so easily said for the word “truth.”

Western civilization has struggled to accept truth for what it is.  Truth has been a popular topic of philosophical debate since the earliest days of human interaction.  Truth is supposed to make communication more trustworthy.  It should make communication a more reliable way of understanding reality. 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has four different definitions of truth.  Within those four definitions there are eleven different connotations.  The first definition refers to truth as the body of real things, events, and facts (Actuality);  the state of being the case (Fact); and a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality.  A second definition says that truth is a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.  A third defines truth as the body of true statement and proposition.  One connotation states that truth  is a property (or statement) of being in accord with fact or reality, fidelity to an original or to a standard.  Another connotation suggests that truth is sincerity in action, character, and utterance.  Truth derives from the Middle English word (treowth) meaning fidelity or faithfulness.  This old word is best known in the word “troth” from the Book of Common Prayer wedding ritual where the couple plights (or pledges) their “troth” (or faithfulness) before the community.

To say the least, truth is a much more complicated word that inconvenient.  Yet, it is essential to the human enterprise.  Real communication, and thus society itself, depends on people agreeing on the answer to Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”  I doubt we will ever arrive at a single definition.  But for the purposes of this blog, I want to suggest some straight forward ways of understanding the word truth.

First, truth is about the real and actual in our world.  Truth is a noun, it is a real thing not a made up or pretend “something.”  Our perception of the real or actual may vary based on our physical senses, our mind’s understanding, and our soul’s desires.  But the accuracy or inaccuracy of our perception does not alter the truth itself.  There are things that are so clouded by our perceptions, that we cannot call them truth.  We call these statements of faith or mysteries.  These are valuable, in themselves, but they are not truth as I am referring to it in this blog.  Truth is a thing that exists as part of the real or actual world and is not subject to opinion or perception for reality.

Second, truth is knowable only to the extent that our perceptions are aligned with the way that others see and perceive the world.  Truth, as an operative word, works only within a social context.  Operatively, we can function with truth as long as people are honest about the limits of their perceptions and are able to live in dialogue with others who are also honest about the limits of their perceptions as well.  Truth is that middle ground where we agree that what we are seeing is real after excluding self-deception based on self-interest, etc. 

Finally, to declare something to be true is, and should be, an act of deep humility, acknowledging that we may be in error.  I quote my favorite 20^th Century philosopher on truth. Mr. Monk said repeatedly, “I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.”  The ancient truth-speakers (real prophets) were generally slow to speak because they felt the weight of the truth weighing down upon their mind and soul.  The charlatan Court Prophets were always eager to speak and say whatever their sovereign required of them.   Truth is more often announced in whispers than it is in headlines.

What is an inconvenient truth?  When a whispered truth causes our lives to protest and resist, we have encountered an inconvenient truth.  When a quietly spoken word causes our hearts to sink and our minds to yield, we may have heard an inconvenient truth.  When the powers at be who have much to lose because of a whispered word “declare war against it, we may have met an inconvenient truth.  The inconvenient truth is a glimpse of reality that breaks through our wants and desires, our myths and mental foolery, and reveals that which is uncomfortable, unwanted, and undeniably true.

The Prophetic Voice and the Inconvenient Truth

There is an important correlation between an inconvenient truth and the notion of prophet in our society.  Some call themselves a prophet because they believe it gives an aura of authority to their words.  But the speaker does not give authority to the words.  The words that give authority and power to the speaker.  It is important that we learn to distinguish between the speaker and the inconvenient truth that is spoken.

The prophet is not responsible for the inconvenience of the truth that is spoken.  The prophet is only responsible for being faithful to that word.  If the words are spoken in bad faith, then the speaker can and should be ignored.  How can we know if a speaker is being faithful?  Here are few things to consider.

Is the speaker credible?  Does the speaker have training, experience, special knowledge and/or a community that holds them accountable for their words?  As we say in the South, does the one speaking “have a dog in the hunt” or are they serving a more objective purpose?   Does the one announcing an inconvenient truth speak out of conviction or an evident self-serving need?

Is the speaker clear and focused?  Truth, inconvenient or otherwise, is seldom a broad generalization that wraps around our lives like a giant amoeba.  Truth is generally a narrowly focused, perhaps much-qualified, but stated in clear, non-technical language.  The prophet is generally a person of few words, but enough words to get the truth across.  The most commonly understood inconvenient truth is that the increasing rate of global warming is the result of human choices made over the last 100 150 years.  Note the qualifiers (“rate of” and “100 -150 years”).  Note also that there is no discussion of the difference between climate and weather.  This statement is, in essence, the inconvenient truth that has been spoken by a vast majority of weather scientist for over two decades.  The words are clear and focused.

The truth, not the speaker, is the center of attention.  Too often, the speaker upstages the truth being spoken.  We can feel confident that a person is speaking an inconvenient truth when the focus is on the word being spoken and not on the personality of the speaker.  There is no value to showmanship when offering an inconvenient truth.  The truth itself must be able to affirm itself and convince the listener.  Many will try and speak this truth, but very few will succeed because they do not want to stand behind the truth.  They want to be out front where they can be applauded for their courage or wisdom.  Inconvenient truth does not need a “sideshow hawker” to boost its validity.  It speaks for itself from the center of the stage.

A prophet is interchangeable and replaceable, the truth is not.  As history has shown, prophets seldom profit from their words.  Many will die at any early age.  Others will fade into the pages of history.  Many will be silenced and leave only their words behind.  Speaking inconvenient truths is not a career choice.  There is no such thing as a genuine, professional prophet.  The world raises up those who can speak the truth in times of need.  Once the truth is offered it takes on a life of its own and the original voice may be lost.  Can you name the person who first offered the truth of global warming?  Few of us can but we know their words.  Truth does not depend on a personality to carry it into the public conversation?  Once spoken it will do so on its own. 

A prophet is a servant of the word and the word of a servant.  These are two ideas that get lost in the public square.  A truth speaker allows the truth to shape them and their words.  They feel the need to honor the truth they speak with careful word selection and setting it in a context that does not detract from it.  All that they do and say is in service of getting the word out into the public marketplace of ideas.  When they are faithful to the word, they can rest assured that the word they speak will be received as a word of a servant, not someone who is manipulating and using the word for other purposes.  There is an integrity to truth-speaking that makes all the difference.

A final word about the truth speaker.  Occasionally a truth speaker arises that lingers in the public mind.   Generally, they are remembered because of their courage and sacrifice to the word they spoke.  This is okay.  But we should never separate them from the words they spoke.  A memorial should never be a simple image of the person.  The words they spoke should be inscribed in the same rock from which the person was sculpted.   The spoken truth will remain long after prophet has been forgotten.  To remember both is okay.  But, when we remember the prophet and forget the word, we have dishonored both!

How should we receive the inconvenient truth?

What follows are a few observations on the relationship between the inconvenient truth and the hearer. 

Whenever we hear someone offer a dire warning for our society, we need to harbor  a healthy skepticism.  Why?  Because the truth can take it being examined but lies and deceit will be devoured in the fires of the skeptic.  All truths need to be tested in the fires of reality.  This is just as true of religious knowledge as it is of scientific insights.  We do not have to be cynical about other’s motives or disrespectful of their beliefs.  We do not have to muster hatred, anger, or bitterness in order to be skeptical of someone and their words.  We do not have to judge them to be fools or demons in order to disagree with them.  However, we do need to test their words in our and other’s experiences. 

Do they pass the smell test?  Are their words “hooking” a known bias of mine and creating a purely emotional response?  Do I have sufficient distance from the spoken truth to be able to assess its fairness and accuracy?  Am I willing to sit down with the speaker and others to weigh and test the conclusions?  The hearer of the inconvenient truth bears the burden of proof for accepting or denying its validity, but only for themselves.  An unthinking, untested acceptance of or denial of an inconvenient truth will not serve us well as an individual or as a society. 

However, once we have come to believe that there is truth behind the inconvenience, we need to take it seriously.  If is bears up under the weight of scrutiny, then it should compel us to act.  But the energy to act should come from the truth itself, not from its main proponent or the cheerleaders that champion it in the media.  We do not support an inconvenient truth in order to belong to the group or pay our dues to the club.  If the truth, itself, does not motivate you to take action you may need to spend more time listening or move on to something else.  The truth will move us to act.  It has that power once we are open to and accepting of it.

Many of the positive movements for change in western culture began as an inconvenient truth.  Abraham spoke of monotheism and became the founder of three great religious traditions on earth.  Greek democracy continues to echo in Western culture from a voice spoken in the face of ancient oligarchy.  The idea of the earth revolving around a star established an observational science as opposed to a revealed, biblical view of science.  The elevation of the dignity of the individual challenged a  medieval world of Lords and Serfs.  The voice that proclaimed that human rights apply to all people continues to echo in every society on earth who seeks to protect them.  Each of these inconvenient truths has ground and polished a new facet on the diamond of human culture.  They have served as words of promise and words of warning.  We ignore them at our own detriment.

What does an inconvenient truth offer us?

The inconvenient truth has the power to hold a mirror up to ourselves and our society.  The reactions they cause in society, reveals much about our values and the things we hold to be of ultimate importance.  To deny the human influence on global warming betrays a valuing of the present over the future, the needs of the few over the needs of the many.  The inconvenient truth of racism in our culture and the resistance that many have to its very existence shows our society to be more concerned for maintaining privilege and position for the majority at the expense of the minority, the strong over the weak.  Inconvenient truths can teach much about who we are and the values that truly operate in our lives.  By comparing these learnings to our words and stated intentions, we can uncover the changes that are necessary for our future growth and development as a people.

By allowing ourselves to be shaped by the inconvenient truths that have proven themselves in our lives, we are able to see through the gaslighting that tempts us to deny the reality of truth itself.   Inconvenient truths can become the polar star that enables us to steer our lives together toward something that greater than we are.  Inconvenient truths have the power to strengthen our resolve and help us discover new ways to continue the human journey into a place of even greater abundance for all people.  Empowered by truth, we can move toward broader freedom for all humanity.

Ultimately, inconvenient truths can lead us to a clearer perspective of ourselves and a deeper appreciation for what we do not yet know, the mysteries in life.  In these mysteries we will find the keys that will unlock the future that awaits us as a species.

How can we best prepare ourselves to hear them?

If inconvenient truths are so important to our present and future lives, what can we do to more fully appreciate and make them part of our lives as individuals and as a community?

First, we have to grow up.  When we were little we thought like a child and acted like a child.   We were the center of our universe.  We wanted our wishes to be enough to get what we wanted.  We had no time for waiting and demanded that every whim be granted.  But when we grow-up we must put away some of the things from our childhood.  We are not the center of universe. We do not get our way just by demanding and wishing.  Neverland is not a place.  Believing is not the same as reality.  Belief cannot change reality, but it can shape our perception of it.  If we are to grow into the full measure of humanity, we must put away the things of childhood and learn to accept inconvenient truths.

Second, we must challenge, and if necessary, change deeply held beliefs that will enable us to better understand and bring meaning to our lives.  When an inconvenient truth shows us something unfavorable about ourselves, we must discover ways to embrace those learnings and incorporate them into our lives.  When they expose us to the mysteries, may we grow through and into the person that is inside, groaning to see the light of a new day.

Let us listen carefully, discern the prophetic voice, and respect the future as much as you respect the past and present.  The inconvenient truths have to power to help us do these things and more.  The inconvenient truth is a gift from life itself.  It offers much to those who are groaning into becoming a new creation.

Shalom,

Bob

The Strategic Lie - Truth-telling and the Social Contract

Taos, NM Fall 2017

For the last few years we have seen the re-discovery of an old political strategy.  It is not new, but for a while it had gone out of vogue.   Voters demanded that their representatives tell at least a semblance of the truth.  But bald-faced, “I-know-and-you-know” I am lying has made a big comeback. It is heard every day from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Unfortunately, it is also starting to creep (double meaning implied) into the Supreme Court Chambers.  We are seeing the resurgence of strategic lying.

Lying has been part of human society since the first new mother asked, “Isn’t she the most beautiful baby ever?”  Humans have used lying, in various forms, to influence enemies and build alliances. 

I am from Texas.  The tall tale is part of our heritage.  It is an exaggeration of facts that is accepted as part of the cultural language.  Everyone in Texas knows that if you cut the story in half (more for some folks) you will have some semblance of what actually happened.  But strategic lying exists is a whole different ballgame.

Strategic lying occurs when a political figure stares straight into a camera with a “Cheshire cat grin” and makes a statement knowing that it contradicts what he or she has said just the day or week before.  It is a known lie that is spoken and defended as truth in order to gain some expected benefit.  There is no subtlety or suggestion of truthfulness.  It is told and accepted as truth despite it being known but unacknowledged as a lie.  Unfortunately, the strategic lie is used by both the right and the left.  It is used by the middle and by those who describe themselves as non-partisan and independent.  It is a fact of life in our political discourse in the United States in 2018.

In this essay I will explore why I believe that this is a very dangerous tactic and that the voters cannot tolerate it from anyone who is asking for their support or vote. 

Lying and the Social Contract

Open societies like ours are called voluntary associations.  They depend upon a broadly accepted social contract.  This contract is defined by social theorists as an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits.  It grew out of the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in a book titled On the Social Contract that was first published in 1762.  His ideas grew out of far more ancient ideas that circulated throughout the societies that clustered around both sides of the Mediterranean for millennia. His and the ideas of Locke, Hobbes, and others were the foundations of the French Revolution, the revision of the British parliamentary system, as well as the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

One of the principle tenets of the social contract is that in order for the relationship to be viable some measure of trust must exist between those who govern and those who are subject to their governing.  But trust is a very fragile part of any relationship.  Even the most committed relationships can be destroyed in short order by a violation of trust.  When trust begins to weaken, the relationship begins to lose its integrity.  We may prop up the relationship for a while, but ultimately, if trust is not restored, the relationship will fall apart.

Weakening trust erodes the social contract.   And lying erodes the trust.  I have seen it too many times in failing marriages.  It may begin with infidelity.  But infidelity is forgiven much more often than the lies that are used to cover it up.  The lying cuts the relationship off at the roots so that trust can no longer feed or support the marriage. 

The same applies to the social contract.  A politician that makes a bad choice in a vote can be forgiven as long as she or he retains the trust of the voter.  But the politician that is seen as lying to the voter will not be forgiven for poor judgment or a bad voting record.  When trust fails the relationship is in trouble.

If the trust is not strong enough to maintain the relationship between the governed and the governors, the social contract will not survive.  With the loss of a social contract, the voluntary association will dissolve.  Trying to maintain it will result in involuntary association.  This process is called civil war and it will likely end in fascism.  At root of this lack of trust is the strategic lie.

The Strategy of Lying

Who lies?  I do not know everyone, but I strongly suspect everyone lies.  This is especially true of the person who says they never lie.  Lying is simply one way we cope with uncomfortable facts and situations.

What is a lie?  Lying is stating something as fact that is either not true or being held as a fact that has not been proven.  To be considered a lie, it must be understood by the speaker to be something less than fully true.  Lies come in many degrees and shades.  We have hundreds of words and phrases that help us communicate the idea of a lie.  We tell “white lies” and “whoppers.”  We can commit slander, perjury, cast aspersions, and engage in hyperbole.  We are very creative in our ability to lie. 

Why do we lie?  In my opinion, there are four reasons we engage in serious lying such as strategic lying.

First, we lie to protect another.  We may tell a falsehood to protect the feelings or situation of the hearer or to protect the reputation or livelihood of a third party.

Second, we lie to deceive another.  We tell a lie to make the other person believe something other than the truth.  It may also protect them or another, but the primary reason is we want to deceive them.  There is always a malicious intent at play when we are seeking to deceive them.

Third, we will also lie to protect ourselves.  This is ego-based lying that seeks to hide a truth about ourselves from others.  Again, it may also protect others, but the primary intent is to protect ourselves from some negative outcome of truth-telling.

Finally, we lie in order to deceive ourselves.  There are some truths that are too painful to admit.  We will tell a lie in order to convince ourselves that it is true. This seldom works for long but when it does the damage to the self is immeasurable.  For example, we believe that lying is what bad people do.  I am not a bad person.  Therefore, I always tell the truth.  By telling this over and over we hope to make it true.  It does not work.  We become not only a liar, but a self-deceived liar.

How do we lie?  We have two main methods for lying. 

First, we lie by misrepresenting facts.  We tell a falsehood with no basis in fact.  It is more than a shading of truth.  It is a bald-faced lie.  This is the lie that can be told without a beard to hide our facial expression.  It looks the hearer straight in the eye and tells an unqualified, absolute untruth.

The second method is a misinterpretation of facts.  This is the origin of the old Mark Twain quote about statistics being damned lies.  It is what Stephen Colbert referred to as “truthiness.”  It sounds true.  It sounds like it ought to be true.  From a particular perspective is seems all but true.  Unfortunately, it is a lie based on a faulty set of assumptions that plays into one’s hopes and desires rather than to our reasonable self.  A popular, truthy lie that is current at the moment is, “All Mexican immigrants are criminals.  Why else would they be sneaking into our country claiming asylum?  Why wouldn’t they just wait their turn through legal means?”

Strategic Lying Destroys the Social Contract

In the final section of this essay, I will explore how lying erodes our social contract and what we can do to reverse the trend.

The social contract breaks down when we can no longer trust that those who govern are telling the truth.  This is degree sensitive.  We can handle white lies.  We can tolerate a politician lying to us to protect us from something.  We do not need to know the secret negotiations that take place between countries as long as we trust that they are being conducted for the greater good.  If our trust in their motives is strong enough, we can forgive and even applaud an obvious lie.  However, trust evaporates if they fail to do what they have promised and lie about their intentions.  When the entire government lies in order to serve the interests of a few individuals or a select group of people at the expense of the many, trust ebbs.  If the lying continues, the lack of trust will destroy the social contract that supports the voluntary association of governing.

Is all lying self-serving? Do people lie just to get their way?  I do not think habitual lying is a simple matter of serving our needs.  Nearly everyone believes that lying is bad.  Many folks, however, become so accustomed to shading the truth or outright lying, that they no longer see it as bad.  It is “deal-making” or being “street smart.”  It is not really lying.  It may begin with a “harmless little lie.”  But then bigger lies begin to slip into their stories.  Lying becomes easier with practice as we self-justify it and redefine it as something that more closely aligns with our desired, public persona or self-concept.  I am a deal-maker and this is what I do to make my deals.  I would never lie, but I am smart enough to not put everything on the table.

This slide into lying then leads into the final assault on the social contract.  Once we know (though we may not admit it) that we have told a lie from time to time, it is easy to assume that others have also told a lie.  This is called projection.  If I lie, then everyone else must lie as well. 

When someone states a fact that we disagree with, we protect ourselves from that truth by declaring that they are lying.  They may call it lugenpresse or “fake news.”  They will ascribe negative motives to why the other person would lie.  They may call them ignorant, dishonest, disloyal or manipulative.  Most often, they will draw on their own personal motives to describe the liar’s motives.  The other lies for the same reasons I would lie, if I ever lied. 

When the game reaches this level, the those who are governed will turn on those who govern and the trust decays further.  The voluntary association goes on life support.

This trust will fall more quickly if the governed or those who govern are unfamiliar with the assumptions involved in a particular statement of fact.  Without understanding the basics of climate change, the whole argument supporting the human role in global warming become unintelligible.  It can be passed off as a natural phenomenon.  The only inference the uninformed can make is to declare that those who talk about human influence on climate change are lying.  Without trust in the institutions of science or our government, the bonds that hold us together continue to grow weaker and weaker.

Once we suspect the motives of someone to be less than honorable then anything they say can be easily dismissed as a lie.  This will be especially true if we cannot see the assumptions that support their statement and we do not want to acknowledge that what they say might be factual.

As our perceptions harden, our trust becomes weaker and weaker.  The voluntary association we share with them begins to dissolve. 

If it is a friendship, we may simply walk away.  Or we find a way to maintain the relationship if it is useful to us.  This changes the nature of the relationship to them from being a friend into becoming a resource.  These mechanical, tit-for-tat, relationships become highly reciprocal and manipulative.  This is most common in a work relationship where neither enjoys the association but only tolerates it because it pays the bills.  If this type of relationship happens within a family, it becomes very formal and distant.  The association becomes uncomfortable and no longer serves its purpose.  It is tolerated only for what it provides those involved. 

If this mechanical relationship no longer serves their needs, they divorce.  In the world of work, they either quit or are fired.  In a family, they become estranged.  If it happens within a nation or culture, it leads a division such as East and West Germany, India and Pakistan, and North and South Korea.  These are all examples of cultural divorces.  Trust became impossible and so one or the other decides to leave the relationship and the association dies.

But what happens when one of the parties refuses to leave the relationship?  If they are to maintain the relationship, it must become an involuntary association and ways must be found to enforce the complex, highly-manipulated relationships that will be required.  This was the case between the Union and Confederacy in North America.   The ultimate expression of a broken association that is struggling to create an involuntary association is civil war.  It seeks to control a fractured culture, workplace, or family.

How do we avoid either divorce or civil war?  I believe that truth-telling, alone, can re-establish the social contract and return it to a voluntary association. 

Genuine truth-telling is more than spitting out factual information.  The information must be true to the best of our knowledge.  But it demands more than a scrupulous attention to stating something honestly.  There are several other conditions that apply.

Truth-telling requires that we speak the truth so that it can be heard.  We need to speak in ways that it is reflective of the hearer’s experience.  It needs to be in a shared language.  It needs to use words and illustrations that help the hearer understand what you are saying.  It must also avoid creating so much emotional noise that it prevents the hearer from being able to hear. 

The speaker must accept full responsibility for the communication process if they are to tell the truth and have it heard.  Is this fair?  No.  Is it easy?  No.  Will it always work?  No.  But we tell the truth because we have a need to do so.  We are not trying to change their minds or help them see the light. Our only concern should be to ensure that they understand what we are saying because it is the truth.  To accomplish this, we must accept responsibility for the process of communicating this truth.

What can we do if others refuse to hear our truth as we have spoken it?  If we have done our best, we move on.  Truth, when heard, carries its own reason to be believed.  Perhaps we are not the person to speak to this particular person about this topic.  We can move on knowing we have done our best.  The situations may change, and we may be able to return to this conversation.  But I can guarantee that “Yes, it is!” and “No, it isn’t!” does not count as truth-telling.  In fact, it only fills the process with so much emotional noise that the truth gets lost.

When we engage in truth-telling we need to be fully aware of the assumptions we are making.  We need to speak with deep humility confessing with Mr. Monk, “I may be wrong, but I don’t think so!” And then we need to listen as they correct our observations and thus reveal our assumptions.  It is always possible that we are wrong.  Truth-telling always involves acknowledging that we may have inadvertently misstated something.

Generally, we need to speak the truth gently and quietly.  Shouting seldom adds truth to a statement.  It only adds noise and raises suspicions that more is going on that simple truth-telling.

We need to let go of any agenda other than seeking to speak the truth.  Truth-telling is not intended to convince or convict.  It is a statement of the truth as we know it, in that moment.  Any taint of self-interest or hidden agenda will taint the truth and make it more difficult to hear.

If we have an agenda we cannot avoid, then it is best if we admit it up front and hope the hearer can filter it out of your truth-telling.  Only by cancelling the noise will they be able to hear and receive the truth.

But, by far the most important condition for truth-telling is to speak only after listening to another’s views so thoroughly that you can restate their views to their satisfaction.  It is unlikely that we can ever speak truth to someone who believes that we do not respect, understand, or care about.  Truth-telling begins with respect for the hearer as much as it does with respect for the truth.  (By the way, it also grows out of self-respect, but that is another essay.)

With this kind of truth-telling, trust can begin to fill the space between us and strengthen the voluntary association that binds us together.  It will help heal shattered feelings and offer an open hand, palm up, to those with whom we disagree.  If honesty and trust grow, that hand will be taken, and the voluntary association will be strengthened.

Before closing I, want to deal with that feeling when we feel that we are drifting toward an involuntary association and the possibility of fascism?  One word, “Resist!”  How? By continuing to tell the truth.  Protect and defend the weak and vulnerable as best you can.  But do not yield to lying and the sort of tactics that are being thrown at you.  Tell the truth.  Do not expect to be honored for your truth-telling.  Do not expect people to welcome your truth-telling.  But allow the truth you speak, so that once heard it will begin to change minds and hearts.

The only defense against the dark art of strategic lying is a radical commitment to telling the truth.  In doing so we can lay a foundation and a renewed social contract can find new footing.  Tell the truth as you know it.  Let the truth set you and your neighbor free to live in an open and life-giving society.

Always hopeful,

Bob Dees

Bob’s new book, Whispering Presence: Inviting Mystery to be Your Daily Companion, is now available from amazon.com in both print and kindle editions.  You can download a free excerpt from Amazon.  If you want a companion who can help you find something more in your life, get your copy today.