10. Believe in truth
To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
We Need to Speak Truth Loudly
“The seal of God is Truth.” — Yoma 69b
“Accept the truth from whomever says it.” — Maimonides, Introduction to the Chapters of the Fathers
A certain amount of fearlessness is necessary in the pursuit of truth. Truth is not always what one wants it to be. When one arrives at a truth and it undermines belief, one is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock of what one already believes, the comfort and love of a community that shares those beliefs, the security of knowing that one is on the “right side.” The hard place of uncertainty; of not knowing how much this one truth will undo; of worrying that changing this belief in light of these facts will destroy this community which I have called home for all these years.
Everybody “believes” in truth — the truth that if the light will not turn on it is either because there is something wrong with the flow of electricity or something wrong with the light bulb; the truth that snow is cold, and the flame on the stove top is hot. Nobody who is sane will claim that it is night when it is actually day. Nobody in control of their faculties, and who is a fluent speaker of English, will put their hand on the stovetop flame and honestly claim it is cold.
People also lie a lot. I was late to class because I had something urgent that I had to take care of — not because I woke up late after partying last night. The fact that people lie like that is actually dependent on their believing in the existence of truth. Henry Frankfurt has argued cogently that bullshitting is beyond lying and is an indifference to truth. Bullshitting is a dangerous enemy of truth, since the BS-er is indifferent to truth and therefore impervious to being proven wrong. The true BS-er — and we have a presidential candidate who practices the art of BS at the highest level — is unconcerned that his statements do not match facts; even facts that are easily retrievable, such as crowd sizes or what one said or did not say in a recorded interview. When the BS-er is challenged, they just deny the accusation.
It is in the face of a political stance that is indifferent to truth that one must bind oneself to truth as a pursuit and a practice.
Believing in truth, by which I understand believing that there are facts in the world which can establish what has happened or is happening, is only the first step. Beyond belief, one needs to speak truth. One needs to speak truth loudly when all are caught in the comfort of useful and well-trod falsehoods; nationalistic myths; junk science; false histories. The complexity of a solution cannot and should not stand in for the complexity of an issue. Figuring out how to pay reparations to indigenous people and to the descendants of kidnapped Africans is complicated. The truth of the genocide of Native Americans is simple. It happened. The American people bear responsibility for it. The truth of the kidnapping and enslavement of African people is simple. It happened. The American people are responsible for it.
It is of the highest importance to uncover the truth; to learn the history; to set aside the myths. We must speak truth to power, because (unjust) power suckles from lies. (“Jews will not replace us,” “An invasion from the Southern border,” “There are no innocents in Gaza,” “The IDF is the most moral army in the world.”) When we tell the truth, we get a certain clarity of vision about our responsibility as humans in the world. I’ll go first.
Police forces in the United States are mired in their racist origins in slave patrols in the South, and occupation forces in England and the Philippines. A disproportionate number of the 600 people killed every year by police are Black males. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people in the world.
When we tell the truth, we get a certain clarity of vision about our responsibility as humans in the world.
The Israeli occupation is not now nor has it ever been benign or just. Israel has never been a democracy (except perhaps for the several months between the end of military rule in 1966 and the Six-Day War in June 1967). Israel is slowing slipping into fascism. There is official support for (or at the least indifference to) the damage, injury and death inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank by Jewish settlers.
Some 1,200 people in Israel were brutally killed by Hamas militants and Gazan civilians on Oct. 7. As many as 251 people were taken back to Gaza as hostages and treated brutally.
More than 40,000 Gazans have been killed by the IDF since Oct. 7. Most of them civilians. Many of them children.
Before we get out of this, whatever “this” is, we have to tell the truth about it.
