Transcript for the Piece Audio version of What happened to the truth?

What is the most important question a person can ask? For me, it boils down to a very simple question; Is it true? I don?t know about you, but sometimes I wonder Why is truth getting lost in the shuffle? I?ve recently taken on a project to explore that question, but more on that later. First, some perspective. How many times today, yesterday, or let alone the past week, will you, have you, seen this: ?I?m not sure that person really knows what they?re talking about, but he seems to believe it himself. Or worse?it?s a bit unethical, but everybody?s doing it.
Oooh, truth testing can be a slippery slope.
All right, let?s see some concrete examples: Ring-ring-ring. Recently, Fred from my bank called. My bank. Ted, how are you? How are things going? Hey, do you know about the bank?s new low loan rate. 2.99%?
No, I didn?t. Fred sounded so friendly?and why calls like this come through just when I?m contemplating reroofing, a massive landscaping project or when it?s time to send my boy off to grad school? Despite myself, I began to salivate. ?2.99%? I asked. Fortunately my truth detector was working that morning. ?Is it fixed??
?Yeee-es,? Fred, good friend Fred from my bank said? ?It?s fixed?for six months.?
He whispered it like that, as if the line were a throw-away. As if I didn?t have a truth detector, as if I would conveniently not hear him say ?for six months.? Have you ever noticed how sometimes being polite gets in the way of speaking the truth? Not that time. I told Fred that wasn?t a fixed rate. That?s an adjustable rate.
What has happened to our language? I don?t know about you, but I far prefer it when words don?t stray too far from their meanings. Isn?t that what truthfulness is all about? By the way, do you know what bankers call that 2.99% rate when they lock the doors at night and whisper among themselves, don?t you? It?s called a teaser rate! So much for the practices of our staid financial institutions.
Perhaps I could dismiss this run-in with a banker as an exception to the rule. But then I hear about the mortgage crisis. I hear about foreclosures as the rate climbs on adjustable home loans. Is it any wonder we are in a mortgage and banking crisis? With tactics like the one Fred tried to pull on me, multiplied the nth degree, foisted on more trusting souls with certain embellishments and twists, as the sharks among us grab their commissions at the expense of the gullible, whoa, is that what society is supposed to be all about? A privileged fishing pond for the clever, and devil take the hindmost for the rest of us?
Sadly, stretching the truth isn?t limited to our financial institutions. Misinformation, as the absence of truth has become known lately, is everywhere, in politics, in government, in journalism. The irony of it is-- we live in The Information Age.
Indeed, people in the information industries, advertising in particular, know the key to a successful ad campaign is to cut through ?the clutter,? that barrage of information that daily inundates us. Should this be done at the expense of the truth? I shudder sometimes as I am out riding my bike. I see a motorist, eyes glued to his GPS, one hand on his cell phone, the other on his turn signal, a realtor decal in his window obscuring his view. He appears to be readying himself for a right hand turn that will pass right through my position in the bike lane. Does he see me?
While in the midst of this, I shudder for more than my personal safety. The situation crystallizes for me how the rise of technology, the 24 hour news cycle and the sensationalized virtual reality video game of life in the big city that foists itself as the truth, how all of this is a rising tide, a storm surge that threatens to engulf us all, simple truths being overcome by expediency.
If the banker on the phone line sounds like a nice guy, a legitimate guy, a clever fellow, and if you?d like a cool $10,000 at a 2.99% rate?will you be drawn in by the 2.99% rate, not even hearing him whisper his six month catch? If you are savoring fresh air and healthy exercise on your bicycle, is your right to life on a lower scale than that Lexus realtor out to mark his next kill, er-closing?
We are all swimming in a sea of information and my outcry is this ?people who disconnect truth from information are bound to drown. Yes, for too many, it is the Misinformation Age.
Please folks, as you careen down the information highway, watch the traffic flow. Don?t get swept away in the barrage of information that threatens to daily drown us. Folks, the big picture may not really be on that 52 inch DTV the Smiths just set up in their home theatre. Your neighbors and friends have a home theater in their home, don?t they? Don?t you? Oh, it?s that room we once called the family room.
OK, if I?m telling you things you already know, hip, hip, hooray! More of us need to get the word out to those who don?t know, forgot or are otherwise impaled, impaired.
Truth is more precious than gold. Lies lead to disaster. Don?t believe everything you hear. These clich?s have teeth and legs. Believe them. The Information Age exists on a continuum that ranges from bold faced lies to the timeless truths. Any statement, concept, or construction can be placed on this continuum of truth, and the tools provided, the truthfulness of every matter can be measured.
For example, in this political season, we hear Obama slam McCain and McCain slam Obama. The media imply ?shouldn?t cleaner tactics prevail?
Well yes, that certainly would be nice, but was it ever true? In this very country, a politician names Aaron Burr shot a politician named Alexander Hamilton in a duel. It wasn?t about high-wire financial acts either: Hamilton did not bamboozle Burr with a 2.99% teaser rate, though Hamilton was there when our national banking system was established. No, Hamilton shamelessly slandered Burr?s political liaisons.
Our country is polarized Red and Blue now. But at another time, half the country wanted out. Fortunately, President Lincoln saw things differently.
As these examples show, history can give a perspective on the events of today. If you are not using history this way, I invite you to do so. Indeed, the project I mentioned at the start of my speech may interest you. I call my project ?Those Self Evident Truths,? a phrase taken from The American Declaration of Independence. Throughout history, we see the truth has a way of getting out! Thomas Jefferson, the key author of The Declaration, the third president of the United States, the visionary impresario of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis & Clark Expedition, Jefferson had this to say about discerning the truth:
?Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.?
Now I realize that?s only 14 words. Jefferson wrote these words to Richard Price while Jefferson was the US Ambassador to France. Jefferson was expressing his pleasure on learning the US Constitution had just become the new law of the land, a new truth, in America. I see Jefferson?s phrasing as a play on his good friend James Madison?s words ?We the People of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, and so on and so forth. Do you catch the similarity in the phrasing?We the People?that?s James Madison?s opening line to the US Constitution. Whenever the people?that?s Jefferson in his letter to Price. While the momentum of history shows in those words, a dry sense of humor might also be garnered, for surely, as much as we take the Constitution for granted today, Jefferson and Madison had their battles getting it approved--How could they not, when even as stalwart a patriot as Patrick Henry was against its establishment? Poor Henry far preferred the more dispersed powers of the Articles of Confederation, despite the fact that Britain was breathing down American necks even as late as 1812.
Oh, how we do take the American Constitution for granted. We assume, most of the time correctly, that if we put a letter in the mail, it will reach its destination unscathed. We presume, when the traffic light turns green, it?s usually safe to step on the gas. That?s because we have the rule of law. Our constitution, the law of the land. We the people, whenever the people. In the same span of the centuries, France has gone through five republics. We may be living in the ?New World,? but the American Constitution is the oldest one still providing the foundation for a government today.
As I talk about truth, I take examples from Government because government may be the ultimate storehouse of truth. What would a true government look like? How do the goals of government, the people and an economy all mesh together? You can?t necessarily ship ten tons of government to Somalia or the hinterlands of Pakistan and expect immediate results. Indeed, in our own Anglo-American tradition, government as exemplified by the Rule of Law was hundreds of years in the making. The rule of law is often traced back to 1215- the signing of the Magna Carta. It may just be my over-active curiosity, but haven?t you ever wondered just a little bit what it was the Barons of Runnymede demanded of King John, back in those days of old, when knights were bold? As such acts constitute nation-building and as governments build nations and as governments are the ultimate storehouse of truthfulness, well, I hope you are tracking where I?m going with this. I recorded the story of nation-building, Anglo-American style in an audio CD that runs 72 minutes long. I?ve recorded significant documents and commentary?from the first blow against ?The divine rights of kings,? The Magna Carta on up to Lincoln?s Immortal Address at Gettysburg ?that the government of the people, by the people, for the people ?shall not perish from the earth.? Also on the disk are the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the American Constitution. Folks, on those days when you crave more substance than the prattle of talk radio, listen to this recording ?Those Self Evident Truths, while stuck in traffic, while you are hurtling around the country or around the world in an airplane. Get some perspective on this thing called government. Or, are you looking for some late night listening? Just pop Self Evident Truths into your bedside CD player. It?s bound to put you to sleep. The whole series, with musical interludes and commentary runs 72 minutes. It?s all on the theme of nation- building in the Anglo-American tradition. Democracy-Hey, it may not work everywhere, but it seems to be working here.
Another way of looking at the relationship of government, the people and economy is, and I?m speaking now to those of you who love football, Government does for us what referees do for a football game. Who?s your favorite football team? The Green Bay Packers? Do they play a clean game? Can you imagine what would happen if we just let the Oakland Raiders loose on them? That football players are driven to win at any cost may be the bedrock TRUTH, but if it comes at the price of needless brutality, helmet slinging, neck injury and runners scoring from out-of-bounds, it would hardly be a TRUE CONTEST. Likewise government needs be answerable to the standards it has established for itself. That?s what telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is all about. Sound familiar?
Frankly, if you can?t see the relationship between government and truth, to me that says more about the sad shape of things today than anything the media could ever dream up in their craven bias to sensationalize, catastrophize and
Horrify us. Now, put another way, if you?ve made your peace with the whole separation of church and state thing, I don?t know what the spiritual leader of your tradition says but the spiritual leader of my tradition said he was ?the way, the truth and the light,? while the prophet said or him ?The government shall rest on his shoulders.?
Truth and government?Just like soup and sandwich. So, whether your bias towards the truth is of the football variety or the spiritual, I submit to you government and truth should be joined at the hip.
This brings me to a final point about truth and about words not straying too far from their definitions. Specifically, has the concept once called ?data collection? now become synonymous with ?thinking??
Did you know just typing the word ?information? into your search engine returns over 2.6 billion hits? And Google gathers the goods in just .16 of a second to do so. God only know how much information Google could find, if we gave it a full day. A person could type words all day long into their computer and their computer would spit out quite an earful of facts.
But c?mon people, The Information Age or not, information has been around a long time. Google, as ubiquitous as it is, only came on the scene in 1999.Sure, it?s great having such access to all that information! But wait; is all this fact gathering really ?research?? Has the word ?googling? come to mean for some that process which used to be called ?thinking?? Relying on the so called expertise of ?Dr. Google?? How about it, though? Sure, we can quickly learn what?s new with T Boone Pickens or check up on Barney and Miz Beasley, the Bushes? Scottish Terriers at whitehouse.gov but will a Google search really tell me where the price of oil is headed or how I can start up my own power company in my backyard? If you think so, if you?re willing to put your money where your sense of the thing is, you?d better be careful. Information is just mish-mash until it?s processed. By just typing a few words into your search window, and calling it good, you may wind up with three fed ex trucks pulled up to your door, delivering that windmill that looked so attractive on your monitor. It really is that easy.
What is needed today in order to process, filter and refine all the information continuously coming at each of us, isn?t necessarily more honest brokers and bankers, though that would certainly help. What is needed today are more people taking more time to ask that simple question; Is it true. If history tells us anything, up until now, the truth will out. It happened at Runnymede, it happened when Jefferson and others deigned to build a new nation conceived in liberty. It was tested at Gettysburg. If you would like to hear more of Those Self Evident Truths, the story of how democracy came to be, just type into your search engine. But whatever you do, keep asking that one simple question; Is it true?