The Search for Truth

Truth is the ultimate certitude, because it is unyielding. One can choose to ignore it, scorn it, or even curse it, but all to no avail. In the end, truth impassively stands its ground in the face of the most overpowering emotional, verbal, and intellectual onslaughts.

Further, truth can be especially brutal to those who insist on worshipping at the Altar of Theory. This is because truth has a way of frustrating theory and, much like a mongoose circling a snake, ultimately wearing it down and devouring it.

Even if the whole world goes insane (a prospect with a reasonably high degree of probability), you have a holy responsibility to yourself to perpetually search for truth. When all about you are losing their heads, the surest way to keep yours is to be vigilant about basing your actions on truth. Truth is the best friend you will ever have, because, unlike people, it will never desert you in your time of need.

The words contained on this Web site represent my truth (or, more accurately, my perception of truth). You can choose to accept some, any, or all of my opinions. Regardless, neither your perception of truth nor mine has any bearing on truth itself.

Unfortunately, truth is not an easy proposition. For one thing, truth can sometimes make you unpopular. In extreme cases, it has even cost people their lives. Bruno (burned at the stake as a heretic) and Socrates (forced to drink poison after being accused of corrupting youth by questioning tradition) are two well-known examples of this.

As a baseline, then, anyone searching for truth must desire truth more than popularity. As we have all witnessed, fools are often among the most popular people in society.

Universal Principles

That universal principles, or laws, exist is most clearly evident in the world of science. Gravity is the most commonly used example of a scientific principle. We know that anything that falls within the earth’s atmosphere will accelerate toward the ground at the rate of 32 ft./sec2. There are no exceptions to this law.

In other words, you cannot create or alter a universal principle. A universal principle is a natural law that has always existed and will continue to exist as long as there is a universe.

Though we cannot change principles or create new ones, we can seek to discover them, then find ways to use them to our advantage. In other words, our job is not to invent truth, but to search for it. To the extent our search is successful, we achieve positive results; to the extent our search is flawed, our results are negative.

In simple terms, actions always have consequences, and the more knowledge and wisdom one has, the more predictable are his consequences.

Children and politicians are notorious for either not understanding the consequences of their actions or refusing to believe that the same actions will always produce the same consequences. (It is fascinating to ponder why we punish children for not heeding the consequences of their actions, yet vote for politicians who promise to ignore history and continue to repeat the same mistakes.)

Conditioning

What makes the search for truth an even more difficult proposition is that our observations are made through the eyes of our individual conditioning. Thus, because of our differing environments and experiences, your truth may be very different from mine.

One person may see the flag of his country as a symbol of freedom, while someone else may see it as a symbol of oppression. The difference in their perceptions lies in their belief structures.

What causes perceptions, and therefore conclusions, to be wrong are flawed conditioning, false premises, and false assumptions. Unfortunately, probably a majority of false premises are learned as a small child and carried through life.

Since an incorrect premise or assumption is a falsehood, there is a snowballing effect; i.e., an untrue premise or assumption leads to an untrue perception, which in turn leads to other untrue premises, assumptions, and perceptions. All of which lead to negative results.

By contrast, the path to freedom and happiness is paved with correct premises and assumptions, which in turn lead to correct perceptions.

Your search for truth, then, will be flawed to the same extent as your conditioning and premises are flawed, meaning that you cannot expect to have truth on your terms. To lay down conditions in advance of searching for truth is the height of frivolity. If you insist on enlightenment on your terms, you will find only illusion and falsehood.

Loving Truth

The first step in the search for truth is to love truth. Unfortunately, most people do not love truth; instead, they try to make true that which they love. A classic example of this is the manmade global-warming fiction that has been created by thousands of progressive scientists and bureaucrats as a means of carrying out their agenda of exercising control over others.

The point is that you must be careful not to confuse truth with your personal desires; i.e., you must be willing to subordinate your wishes — your dreams, as it were — to reality. That is not to say that you should not have dreams. What it does mean, however, is that you should not allow your dreams or desires to override reality. Put another way, your love of truth must be greater than your desire to make your dreams come true.

No matter how vigorously we attempt to hide from truth, it always finds a way to survive and deliver its consequences — and the consequences can be severe. The greater the repression of truth and the longer the period of time over which the repression takes place, the graver the ultimate consequences will be.

Why, then, do so many people harbor such a disdain for truth? Because in the short term, truth can often be harsh. And, as human beings, we quite naturally gravitate toward less pain and more pleasure. We simply do not like our little self-delusive worlds to be upset by truth.

The often uncontrollable desire for instant gratification causes us to blind ourselves from what is coming down the road. We just want to feel good today. Which is a dangerous way to go through life, because the reality is that one has to be willing to experience the discomfort often associated with truth if his objective is to achieve positive, long-term results.

Self-Delusion

Notwithstanding all of the above, many people allow themselves to live in a world of self-delusion that shields them from truth. Even though we know, or at least suspect, that certain facts are contrary to our desires, we often choose to ignore the facts and cling to our cherished beliefs. This is what makes it possible for people to buy into such failed ideologies as progressivism, socialism, and communism.

In psychology, the term used to describe the anxiety resulting from this self-destructive state of mind is cognitive dissonance. A person so afflicted simply blocks out information that contradicts his established belief structure.

To avoid this trap, you must be vigilant about not allowing your search for truth to be stifled by the widespread delusions of the masses. Which means you must be willing to question everything, even if it represents generations of so-called conventional wisdom.

In the words of Buddha, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Whether a person is well-meaning, maliciously inclined, ignorant, or self-delusive is irrelevant. Truth is Stoic in nature; it does not concern itself with human intentions. It cares nothing about whether we think it is just or unjust. Truth overwhelms everything and everyone in its path. Good intentions coupled with stupidity or self-delusion are no match for truth.

Temporarily, of course, truth can be violated, and we all witness such violations every day of our lives. The Nazis violated truth; the Soviet Union violated truth; and economic truth has been violated in all Western countries for decades, with the riotous consequences only recently starting to emerge.

But the long term is quite different. History has repeatedly demonstrated that time is extremely kind to truth. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Malice may attack [truth] and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

Discovering truth involves courage, honesty, and, above all, a great deal of effort. No one can go on believing whatever he wants to believe — in effect, creating his own reality — without suffering appropriate consequences. And if enough people in a nation are guilty of harboring false beliefs, the nation itself will suffer the consequences of those beliefs.