Come Back to Truth
In so many ways, a return to reality is urgently needed. Our failure to do so is the real “existential threat”.
The pro-Hamas demonstrations sweeping our most elite campuses demonstrate an appalling lack of historical knowledge, never mind maturity, on the part of our most educated children. Historical truth does not guide their decisions, and they accept misleading re-definitions of crucial words to support false premises.
But if truth and facts don’t matter, then reason does not matter. Do facts matter today? If we cannot have open, rational, fact-based discussions about the issues driving our divisions, then ideology will triumph. And if ideology is in control, history shows that spending the lives of others to accomplish the chosen goals is not a problem. Must we go there?
As Thomas Paine remarked, “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead…” (1)
Coming back to truth, to reason, to facts, to reality, is crucially important for our civilization to survive.
Important for whom?
- For America, built on excellent principles that are being rejected and on an effective Constitutional framework that is being ignored by our government.
- For people of God, whose commitment to serve the Creator is offensive to a narcissistic, hedonistic world.
- For universities, as their abandonment of the obligation to teach important skills and knowledge has left them hollow, impotent, and disgraced.
- For business leaders willing to support any Marxist grifter who threatens to call them “racist.”
- For families, whose children and grandchildren are being seduced by internet-borne delusions.
For anyone who desires a safe, productive life and a good world for their children.
Dennis Prager summed it up this way: “Lies are the root of evil, more than any other single thing… Truth is the ultimate antidote to evil.” (2)
On the most basic level, we struggle now with simply living in truth. As Jordan Peterson says, “Tell the truth—or at least, don’t lie.” (3)
After having survived the Gulags, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it most plainly: “Live not by lies.” (4)
Why is this so hard? Why is it even an issue?
Our struggle is often not because we don’t know what is true, but because the culture increasingly extracts an enormous penalty from those who speak it. Doctors can now be threatened with the loss of their careers for speaking the truth to their patients, or for treating them based on their own skills and knowledge instead of following bureaucratic demands. Teachers at every level can be fired for voicing simple truths. Companies can be denied sources of capital for not bowing to the idol of the day.
Survivors of previous tyrannies around the world say this looks incredibly familiar. They warn us to take heed, and to do so quickly. (4)
Are enough of us willing to speak the obvious, demand the facts, believe the truth, and withstand the blow-back, in order to prevent the coming train wreck?
Are you?
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1) Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis”
2) Dennis Prager, PragerU.com, Fireside Chat Ep. 339
3) Jordan Peterson, “12 Rules for Life”
4) Rod Dreher, “Live Not by Lies”