Seeking the Truth

This Thursday's post is going to be a departure from the norm. I've had time to do some self-reflecting over the past week, and I've landed myself in something of a funk. I'll just kick this post off with a quote from a book from my Capstone class - Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. Postman says:

What [George] Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What [Aldous] Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

Something particularly struck me in this quote -- about the truth being drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

I started sliding into a beginning-of-life crisis yesterday morning. I have always prided myself as being a person of honesty and integrity. I don't cheat, I don't steal, and I try to be completely honest about everything. My reasons are fairly simple. Aside from following the golden rule (treat others as you want to be treated), the less I engage in dishonest behavior, the less I have to worry about. Life is hectic enough as it is, after all, without the added stress of having to look over my shoulder constantly, and I don't have to try to remember all of my past lies. Being honest is simply easier.

This is, in large part, the reason that I am not religious. Part of being honest means accepting (or at least seeking) the truth. And I don't mean some kind of existential truth about our place in the universe; I'm talking about the plain, simple truth about everything and anything. Sometimes this means accepting that we don't know what the truth is right now, but we're working on it. And other times, the truth is so close, we can damn well figure it out. "And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)

My entire life revolves around asking questions and digging to find the answers. My parents educated me not by telling me how the world works, but by asking me. They would sit me down with my two brothers, and they would "interview" us on camera. They would ask us what it means to recycle (to get back on your motorcycle), or how the stars stay in the sky (glue), or why trees grow up instead of down (they're scared of dirt).

We even had Bible stories read to us. My parents grew up religious, and my dad was even a national Bible Quiz champion. They would read the stories to us, and then they would ask us what we thought (She turned into salt? That's dumb). And they would never tell us if our answers were wrong or right; the important lesson was that we were trying to come up with the answers. We were taught to seek the truth. We were never told anything; only asked. In short, I had a Socratic upbringing.

In an epic Facebook battle that spanned a night and the next day, I pulled myself into a discussion about gay marriage. The basic premise of my argument was that when it comes to laws, we can't use religion as a guiding compass because everyone has a different interpretation of their own religion, and not everyone is the same religion. For instance, many Christians accuse other Christians of not following the Bible. Hell, there are over 1,500 denominations of Christianity in the United States alone! So we can't just select one religion (or religious denomination) and project its views into law, because we would be imposing that viewpoint onto unwilling recipients, which is unconstitutional (and not nice).

Instead, I said, we should apply the same standard to gay marriage as we apply to other laws. Basically, if it can be demonstrated that gay marriage would make society worse off by using measurable evidence, then the ban should be kept in place. If this cannot be demonstrated, then the ban should be lifted. This is essentially the ultimate goal of our governing body: to make our society better off.

To me, this is the honest approach. I want to know the truth, and to me, knowing the truth is more important than being right, and this is especially important in matters of the law. It is imperative to take an objective stance. Applying the same standard to one law as to all the others is an objective stance.

After making my statement, I was told that my views on the law are immature and that my argument was completely subjective. Then, so many words were put into my mouth that I couldn't even chew them all. I was accused of hating God, of thinking that laws determine our values, of making sweeping claims against religion, of being dogmatic, condescending, and of claiming that God does not exist. I hadn't made any of these claims or done any of these things whatsoever.

In short, the person with whom I was having this discussion flat out lied about most of what I had written. This wasn't about the truth anymore; it was about winning the argument. After making one last attempt at explaining my point, I decided that it wasn't worth it, apologized for appearing condescending, and moved on.

Being a "freethinker" to me means being always open-minded and always seeking the truth. Even if the truth is something I don't want to hear, I want to hear it. Because of the discourse that my truth-seeking has gotten me into, I have decided to go to law school and become a lawyer. I thought it would allow me to use logic and reason to help those in need and to find the truth in the realm of the law. But now, I'm not so sure. My discussion on Facebook was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

As a lawyer, I would inevitably be forced to do what was done to me in the gay marriage discussion. Even if the other person has clearly made a valid point, I would have to stick to my guns, because a good lawyer doesn't lose cases. Or at the very least, a good lawyer doesn't put his hands up and say, "Ah, you got me." I would need to find a way to make the jury or the judge think that the other person was in the wrong, even if I knew they were right. Or at the very least, I would have to distract the judge or jury from the truth by making the other lawyer seem untrustworthy or angry. It's not about the truth, it's about winning.

To me, there's nothing more disgusting than this. Many of us as atheists get caught up in being right, not about being truthful. I myself was caught up in this many years ago, but I have come to accept that I am very often completely wrong. No single person has all the answers.

The only way we can even start asking the right questions is if we are willing to hear the truth.