Truth and Perception

What is truth? Is it real? Or is it relative—whatever each different person perceives it to be?

I’m a believer that there is a truth; it exists outside of ourselves. Our perceptions of it may be different, but if we are seekers of truth, we question our perceptions, and look for what is real.

sketch of a Grecian Urn,
by John Keats, who wrote the poem
"Ode on a Grecian Urn," which makes
the claim "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"
image from Wikipedia

There is a contingent of modern thinkers who claim that truth is relative. You can have your truth; I can have mine. We must accept that what may be true for you, might not be true for your neighbor.

This sounds open-minded and tolerant. But there are problems that come up when you can’t agree on “what is is.” How do we live together with irreconcilable differences on certain things?

For example, if I believe I own a piece of property, and you come along and decide you own that same piece of property, who gets to enjoy the benefits of property ownership? In the non-philosophical world, where we have laws to settle just such disagreements, it would be the person with the deed to the property. The deed is a proof, or evidence of a truth: right of ownership.

Suppose you believe that marriage is a certain thing—a permanent contract between a man and a woman, obligating them to one another, forming a permanent family in which to bring up their offspring, and to financially and socially sustain one another. Suppose someone else believes marriage is any two people announcing they are in a sexual relationship for the time being. Those are not the same things. It is possible for two people to define a word differently, but the thing they define can’t be the two incompatible different things at the same time.

Can the two people hold these different views at the same time and go their separate ways? That was what the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 claimed they could do. But they have not been allowed to. Believers in the permanent-contract-between-a-man-and-a-woman have been told they must accept the any-two-people-in-a-current-relationship as equivalent, even when theirs is a deeply held religious belief. And thus we have bakers, florists, and photographers being coerced to use their artistic skills for purposes that, to them, deny truth.

Suppose you believe that male and female are the only two sexes for human beings, and that your DNA and physiology define which one you are. This has been the truth for all of the millennia of human history. But there are others in our time who believe that there is a plethora of sexes for human beings, and that a person is whatever the individual decides to be, regardless of physiology.

Can the two different people hold these different views at the same time and let the other live their own way? In a tolerant world that could happen. But there is a huge amount of pressure right now to enforce a belief that doesn’t coincide with reality, science, truth as we have historically known it, or as nearly all of us can perceive it to be.

We’re seeing this enforcement of “my relative truth is the one you have to believe” play out with the militantly dogmatic LGBT community (add letters at will to LGBT). But it also exists in politics, economics, academia, entertainment, and just about everywhere you look.

It isn’t actually true that the earth would be better off without humans on it, and that we ought to return to pre-industrial-age technology to atone for being here. Nor is it true that you love pollution if you don’t buy into that humans-are-evil perception.

It isn’t actually true that setting a higher minimum wage for low-skilled workers will make the lives of enter-level workers better. It is more likely to prevent entry-level workers from getting the first jobs that give them experience along with a little bit of income.

It isn’t actually true that government intervention shows that government cares. Government can’t actually care at all; it is simply power. What is actually true is that government interference causes unintended consequences, usually exactly the opposite of the stated goal of the interference. By the way, it isn’t true that government-require purchased health insurance means better health care for all; in the real world it means higher costs and lower quality health care for all.

It isn’t actually true that abstract art, or pushing the envelope, leads to more beauty. Art within constraints has always led to more beauty and innovation than meaningless shapes or purposely vile depictions.

It isn’t actually true that Democrats are the good guys to minorities, especially Blacks. In the provable reality, Democrats have historically been anti-Black, and their policies have proven harmful to Blacks more so other demographics. But perception has overridden verifiable reality for over 90% of Black voters.

It isn’t actually true that centrally standardized government institutional education means better education; in the real world this often means education is deficient for all but the few whose needs match up with the factory-style approach. Maybe not even for them. But even bringing up the idea of alternative choices leads to a howling about not caring about children.

Here’s the problem I see with the philosophical belief that truth is relative: those who claim to believe this are the least likely to tolerate differences from their view of truth. If truth is relative, then the rule must be that you cannot impose your truth on someone else. So there should be zero pressure on the population to conform to their alternative, personal “truths.”

In a world where reality, like gravity, is not to be ignored, we are better off doing certain things:

·         Be open to new information, in case your perception of what is true isn’t accurate.

·         Be tolerant of others who have different beliefs; give the benefit of the doubt that they are searching for truth just as you are. You might just be at a different place in the truth search journey right now.

·         But when you have enough data to be quite sure of a truth, and the other side has no convincing evidence on their side, don’t let them bully you into submission. Stand firm even when the pressure is huge, and growing, and intimidating. Maybe especially then.

Maybe this is why Captain America is my
favorite Marvel superhero.
image from here

Truth Be Told

A week or so ago I spent part of a post talking about Obamacare. Since news on it came out this past week, it might be time to do that in a little more detail.

The challenge I’m looking at is a matter of parallel realities. There are those of us who love truth, and prefer to face the truth and deal with it, even when it’s not ideal, rather than pretend a problem isn’t there.

And then there are those we might call relativists. They don’t like the truth. And they philosophically convince themselves that truth isn’t really a thing; it’s relative. Your truth might not be my truth. We all have our own realities.

If someone wants to live in a fantasy world, that is their choice. The problem comes when they start imposing their fantasy world on the rest of us.

There are stories this week about Obamacare and its serious problems, which show a lot of data, and ring true, because so many of us have been affected, or know many people who have been affected.

And these contrast with other stories about how Obamacare has fulfilled its promises, and has made major steps toward solving everyone’s health care issues in the country—which are at odds with the facts, the data, and the anecdotal stories all of us have encountered.

Let’s start with some facts. Guy Benson comments on a USA Today piece, collecting a lot of the information. This first chart, provided by USA Today, shows the average percentages of rate hikes in the various states.

Image found here

The best off states (all big-government bastions) still have hikes. Which means that Obama was not telling the truth about everyone averaging a rate cut of $2500. That hasn’t happened in any year of Obamacare; rates have always risen. Some states are rising half again as much—just this year.

As Benson describes it,

Based on that chart, only a small handful of states will have the supposed 'good fortune' of experiencing single-digit hikes.  The vast majority will experience cost surges in the double-digits, with roughly half of all states getting slammed with increases of at least 20 percent.  Time magazine reviews the eight states where consumes will suffer the most next year, where regulators have imposed rate jumps of at least 30 percent.  The piece's opening sentence says it all: "The Affordable Care Act is getting a lot less affordable for many Americans."

The reason for the hikes isn’t, in these cases, because insurance companies are greedy; the reason is that the companies are required to stay solvent, because otherwise they shut down and all their customers lose service. Which happens to be a side-effect of Obamacare predicted by the reality-and-data side.

Benson continues,

Meanwhile, many Arizonans find themselves in Obamacare's crosshairs, getting rocked by the double-whammy of soaring costs and dwindling-to-nonexistent choices.

Millions of Americans lost their coverage in 2013, the year it was implemented, contrary to Obama’s pledge. The losses continue. This year an additional million lost their coverage.

If you start with the original premise, the Affordable Care Act was to make sure that some 30 million who, at that time, were estimated to be without insurance could get it. The idea was that those who had coverage could keep it. Costs would be lower. Choices would be greater. And policies would cover more.

People who do math pointed out the impossibility of those claims. People who read the Constitution pointed out the loss of freedom—if your government can force you to buy a product, at ever increasing prices, what can’t they force you to do?

So here we are with this growing mess. The “open enrollment” for this year begins November 1^st, so word about the price hikes and loss of choices ought to be front and center in the news.

Instead, Obama gives a speech in which he glowingly reports on his signature “accomplishment,” with mainly lies—or fantasies, if you prefer to believe your nation’s leader is only delusional rather than purposely deceitful.

A fact-checking piece by Melissa Quinn, for The Daily Signal, listed several of the statements that are pretty easily refuted by fact. Quinn lines up each of these statements against the truth. But, as an example, let’s take a look at number 5: “Most people today can find a plan for less than $75 a month at the HealthCare.gov marketplace when you include the tax credits that the government is giving you.”

Here is Quinn’s response:

Earlier this month, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said that consumers who purchase plans on the exchange and receive a subsidy may see monthly premiums of less than $75. The president echoed Burwell’s statement Thursday.

However, of the 17.3 million people who purchase plans sold in the individual market in 2015, 7.3 million received subsidies that lowered the cost of their health insurance. Another 10 million consumers did not qualify for financial assistance.

Those consumers, experts say, are going to be hit the hardest by premium increases. In Missouri, for example, one Kansas City resident will see his monthly premiums rise to $716 each month.

It would be nice to be able to compare like to like. How many of the uninsured prior to Obamacare are now insured at rates they can afford? How many who had insurance they were satisfied with before the ACA have lost it? How many now remain without coverage—at risk of the serious fine, which is less a burden to them than the cost of the “affordable” care?

My guess is that the negatives—loss of coverage, loss of their choice of doctors, and skyrocketing costs—affect more than the original number of those the law purported to help.

It is an axiom that when government goes beyond its proper role, there will be negative unintended consequences, and they will likely be the exact opposite of the stated purpose. So, affordable care means less care, and less affordable.

Glenn Beck has been doing a 4-part audio series this week on socialized medicine, calling Obamacare the “Lie of the Year.” This lie that has been spreading across the world and failing for decades.

There is a difference between coverage and care. It was government interference in the first place that caused insurance to become more than coverage for extraordinary expenses, and covered more everyday expenses, separating customer from the cost, and thereby raising costs, until it appeared that only those with insurance could afford basic care.

More government is not the solution. More free market—that is where the solutions are. Free market, combined with philanthropy for those who are truly in need and unable to pay. A good, generous people, with the freedom to be giving because they are in control of spending their own accumulated wealth—that is the way to provide everyone with needed care. 

Limiting freedom, coercion, redistribution—those are all the old, failed solutions that always lead to tyranny, poverty, and savagery. Speaking falsehoods or fantasies does nothing to provide care in the real world.

Ultimate vs. Relative Good

Back in September 2011 I wrote a couple of pieces about ultimate good. In one called Ultimate Right and Wrong"  I referred to a lecture I went to with American Heritage professor Brett Latimer. He pointed out the dichotomy between two groups of people: those who believe in ultimate Good and those who don’t. Those who don’t use relative beliefs as their standard.

He used a formula for looking at things:

·         The Good (G)

·         Dogma (g)

·         Relativism (b=b)

·         Man-made “good” (B)

So, capital G means ultimate Good—what is permanent, unchanging, and revealed to us by God, and necessary for civilization.

Dogma is the way a culture goes about trying to reach ultimate Good. For example, chastity (no sex outside of marriage) is a revealed G, which gives us strong families, the basic unit of civilization. A head scarf and burka might be a culture’s way of being modest in an effort toward reaching that ultimate G; those cultural requirements would be dogma, a little g. A culture that thinks music (at all) or dancing (at all) should be taboo because they can lead to impure thoughts—that would be a little g. People who believe in ultimate G can differ markedly on little g practices to achieve G.

Relativists don’t look at the anything as G; they look at various versions of g that they think are ridiculous and conclude that all dogma is wrong, proving to them that no ultimate G exists. Instead, they believe all beliefs are equally true and relevant. This is represented as b=b: one belief is equally as true and relevant as any other belief.

But a society will have some version of requirements and laws. So, in a relativist world, the “law” becomes what those in power believe. This is represented as capital B, for the ruling belief.

Who decides the capital B? Whoever is in power. And it can change day to day.

Truth doesn’t matter, because everyone experiences their own truth. However, if your “truth” doesn’t agree with the truth of those in power, you may be coerced into re-thinking until you stop expressing what you believe is true. Because, even though relativists start with the idea that one belief is just as good as another, when they invent a capital B, no other belief is acceptable.

That explains some of the news this past week. Obamacare (the ACA) has increased costs, coerced millions of Americans to buy services they do not want, attempts to force Americans to pay for things that go against they’re deeply held religious beliefs (abortion), and has caused many lost jobs and contributed to economic stagnation—and it doesn’t meet any of its purported purposes, like lowering health care costs and providing coverage to more people. [Analysis from Heritage Foundation here, including an interactive graphic showing how much better off you’d be without the ACA.]  

  

But the president stands before a microphone and with a straight face claims, “There can be no doubt that this law is working. It has changed, and in some cases saved, American lives. It set this country on a smarter, stronger course….This morning, the Court upheld a critical part of this law—the part that's made it easier for Americans to afford health insurance….If your family gets insurance through your job -- so you're not using the Affordable Care Act -- you're still paying about $1,800 less per year on average than you would be if we hadn't done anything.”

These are provable falsehoods, not just opinion. But he’s not held accountable for the lies. Because he wants the reality to be what he says it is, and he’s in the power position, joined by other relativists.

Hillary Clinton sets up an illegal private server, from which she conducts official Secretary of State business—which means our enemies were able to hack in and get access to those emails, but to us she says it was just private things, like her yoga class schedule or maybe some recipes—and that she provided everything that was pertinent. Except that she doesn’t include anything from any server about communications during the Benghazi attack. Except that the slow trickle of emails that have been grudgingly produced show otherwise. But she gets away with saying, “What difference does it make?” and goes ahead assuming she will be our next president.

[I’d really like to have a president worthy of a capital letter P, which I have been refusing to use with our current occupier of the office.]

So, truth is one of those ultimate Goods that relativists don’t believe exists. Instead, they distort and lie, and then insist that we go along with their version of reality.

Here’s another ultimate G: marriage is a God-given institution, to bind a man and woman together, to bear and raise children in order to build a thriving civilization.

Relativists start with b=b: a married heterosexual couple is equivalent to a homosexual couple. I have a hard time buying the equivalence when, this week, following the erroneous SCOTUS ruling, “gay pride” parades included plenty of indecent exposure, and spitting upon clergy, and a group flipping their middle finger at a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Those are equivalent to my husband and me raising our children to be civilized?

But they are indeed claiming equivalence. And then the man-made B takes over: you’re not allowed to believe that man/woman marriage is better than homosexual couples, and you must redefine marriage to include homosexual couples. If you refuse, you will be persecuted and coerced to align with the capital B. You might be deprived of your business, fined, maybe imprisoned, and receive hate and threats.

Our Constitution is full of Capital Gs, because it was written by believers in ultimate Good. So it’s not surprising that the first one listed in the Bill of Rights is the freedom of religion.

The relativists start with the assumption that belief in religion = belief in no religion, or secularism. But when the relativists get power, they don’t stop at equivalence; they impose a capital B. So the new B is, "We will allow you to believe in your religion as long as it doesn’t interfere with our enforced secularism. You can’t talk about religious beliefs in public places, like schools. You can’t expect to choose work you will do or not do based on your beliefs. You must pay for things against your beliefs if we say so."

Requirements of the secular Bs could include making cakes, doing photography, or providing a venue in your home for a same-sex wedding ceremony. [Good list here.]  It could include being forced to personally be the clerk who licenses such a wedding. It might, as has happened in other countries that have experimented with same-sex “marriage,” include being a clergy forced to perform the ceremony for a same-sex wedding. Coercive measures may include threat of job loss, threat of loss of tax-exempt status, threat of loss of power to perform any marriages, loss of ability to offer adoption services to anyone if same-sex couples aren’t given preferential treatment. And more we are yet to imagine.

In the world of ultimate Good, freedom with responsibility is G, and slavery is antithetical to G. But in relativism world, words mean something different. In past centuries relativists thought slavery was acceptable because of rationalizations they could come up with to justify it: not all lives are equal; it’s tradition; our economy might be negatively affected. After a Civil War that ended slavery in our country, relativists still find ways to justify it. That insistence that a Christian florist uses her skills to service a same-sex “marriage” is slavery—beyond what was institutionalized slavery, which couldn’t force use of artistic skills. Insisting that churches alter their beliefs is slavery, not to mention a complete rejection of the First Amendment. And remember, in reality world, rights come from God, not government. So it is never right for government to pretend it can grant or take away those rights at will.

Is there a vast difference between the pro-slavery types of the 1860s and those who today kidnap vulnerable young people and immigrants and enslave them? Because some reports claim there is more slavery in the world now than during institutional slavery. And none of it is done by believers in ultimate Good.

Valuing life is an ultimate G. Relativists think some lives may be valuable, and others not so much. For example, unborn life isn’t valuable if it’s unwanted by the adults who engaged in the act that led to the pregnancy. They might think the elderly or very ill might not be worth caring for, because younger, healthier people are more valuable. Some of these very relativists (including at least four members of the Supreme Court) warp life value by claiming there should be abortion and euthanasia (no value for innocent life) but no capital punishment (value for heinous criminal life).

This is our new reality in the relativistic southern hemisphere. Relative efforts to get an ultimate Good always fall short. Inevitably. If you aim several feet below a target, you’re more likely to hit the floor than the bullseye.

In Spherical Model terms, Ultimate Good is the way to the northern hemisphere, where you can enjoy freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Relative Belief just changes from one relative belief to another, depending on who manipulates mass opinion successfully, leading inevitably to tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

I choose Ultimate Good.

Ultimate Right and Wrong

During the conference I attended last month, I came across a quote by Lincoln that I hadn’t encountered before: 

“This, and this only (will satisfy the South): cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right…. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing…. Let us be diverted by none of these sophistical contrivances….such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong….” –Lincoln

In short, either slavery is wrong or it is right. It isn’t possible for it to be both. It isn’t possible for it to be right sometimes, or right for some people. The concept of calling slavery wrong is an ultimate truth.  

In the class on culture wars I attended, where this quote was used, the teacher, Brett Latimer (an American Heritage professor) pointed out that, according to Lincoln, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,”[1] and if you couldn’t judge by what was right and wrong, then it was only a matter of who had the power. 

Prof. Latimer shared so many things that I’d like to pass along. But here is the beginning in a nutshell, that on other days we may refer to with specific topics. 

There is ultimate Good (big G). While we recognize that there is ultimate Good, it is a human tendency to define, moralize, and specify how to get there. In other words, there is dogma (little g). 

Those who don't believe in ultimate Good believe instead in relativism, the assumption that there is no big G, and that dogma therefore is always wrong, because all beliefs are equally true and relevant (b=b=b). 

But if you take away the big G, then you leave a vacuum that must be filled by something. It is one thing to say that individuals are entitled to their own beliefs, and that we respect their right to their beliefs. It is something else to say that the beliefs are all equivalent. As soon as someone is in a position to make policy (law, rules, education standards, etc.), then that someone’s belief is being imposed. If there is no standard big G to go by, then the relativistic belief of the person(s) in power becomes the enforced belief. In other words, without God-given ultimate truth, the standard becomes man-made truth.

—        The Good (G)

—        Dogmatization (g)

—        Relativism (b=b)

—        Man-Made “good” (B) 

As a society we will either be supporting the ultimate Good (G), or we will be supporting the mad-made “good,” or enforced belief (B). 

One of the basic truths I talk about in the Civilization section of the Spherical Model, is that Family Is the Basic Unit of Civilization. If indeed that is an ultimate truth, then several additional truths hang on that, among them the meaning of marriage. 

Marriage cannot be “the sexual union of a man and a woman, exclusively and permanently bound to one another, benefitting the offspring they produce” and also be “the current sexual attachment of any two beings without regard to exclusivity, permanence, or possibility of offspring.” It isn’t possible for “b” to equal “b.” They aren’t the same thing; they do not offer the same thing either to the persons involved or to society as a whole. 

We can’t say, “For the sake of getting along, let’s just call marriage and homosexuality the same thing,” any more than we can say, “For the sake of getting along, let’s just say that ‘slavery is wrong’ and ‘slavery is right’ are equally and simultaneously true.”  

It isn’t possible for the law to remain neutral. Either slavery is against the law or it is supported as lawful. Either marriage is the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman, or it is something other than that. Either religion is an appropriate subject in schools, or it is not.  

It is not possible for government policy to be neutral. If schools are “secular” to avoid teaching “someone’s dogma,” then the dogma that will be taught will be secularism—i.e., that God is not allowed as part of the teaching. 

During the coming fourteen months of election season, there is some movement to “focus on the economy,” or “focus on the war on terror” as the issues that should be getting our full attention. Personally I do give attention to these big issues. But I cannot agree that protecting marriage or the right to religious expression are merely distractions.  

What we need to know from our candidates is, “What is your worldview?” “Do you believe in ultimate Good?” “What do you view as ultimate Good?” Because the answers to these questions will tell us whether this person can lead us economically (we will know whether they believe in the sanctity of life, liberty and property, which leads to economic thriving), politically (we will know whether they believe in the proper role of government to protect life, liberty and property, but not to engage in coercive “charity,” which always limits our freedom), and toward civilization (with a moral people committed to personal responsibility, strong families, and voluntarily helping one another).

These ultimate questions aren't distractions; they are the central questions we need to keep asking.

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[1] Lincoln statement on March 26, 1864, to former Senator Archibald Dixon, Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, and Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfort, KY, Commonwealth, later put in writing per Hodges’ request. See more here: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt027.html