It
has been pointed out to me that when someone tells me they need to
speak ‘the truth’, I roll my eyes and grimace.
Let
me offer some words to explain the meaning behind my pre-verbal
expression.
Essentially, it communicates two questions: 'is it really true?' and 'is it kind to speak it?'
What
is truth?
Truth
is an ‘epistemic’ concept – which is a fancy way of saying it
is about ‘knowing.’
Mostly
when we say we ‘know’ something, we’re saying that we believe
it to be true.
The
truth however, is that ‘truth’ is decidedly difficult to pin
down. That is, you may firmly believe it to be true, but whether it is or
not is another matter.
For
instance, when I was young, my mother would chide me for some
misbehaviour, and as we were walking away from one another, she would
say ‘And don’t roll your eyes’.
It
was ‘true’ that I was rolling my eyes, but how did she know?
As
a very young child, I believed that she had x-ray vision that allowed
her to see backwards through both her tough head and mine and
therefore, see what my eyes were doing.
As
a louche youth, I believed that eye-rolling was my habitual and
non-verbal way of expressing doubt about her judgment.
Which
belief is true? My mother thinks it’s the first, I think it is the
second.
We (the majority) generally believe it is true that humans
have walked on the moon.
Now,
without saying I doubt that it happened, I can admit
that I was not there – and I’m almost certain you weren’t either. (Are you rolling your eyes?)
Perhaps
it was faked? (Are you grimacing?)
To
be clear, I do not think it likely that the moon landings were faked.
But who knows what is true! I believe it is true that man walked on
the moon. But I might be mistaken.
What
should be spoken? (What is right action?)
Speaking
– and in particular choosing what to say and what not to say – is
an ‘ethical’ concept. That is to say, it is about how one
behaves.
More
generally, ethics is concerned with the question ‘what is right
action?’ But here, I am focusing on the action we call speech:
‘what is the right thing to say?’
What
is the right and wrong thing to say (and more generally do) is
difficult to pin down. Maybe even more difficult that ‘what is
true?’
The
guiding principle for self-behavior is probably kindness. You know,
‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, ‘if you
can’t say something kind, don’t say anything’, etc.
So
what do you say to a child who is eagerly awaiting the arrival of
Christmas Eve and the delivery of presents to the stocking at the
bottom of her bed by Santa Claus?
You
could start by asking whether Santa Claus is ‘true’. And most
grown-ups believe he is a fiction. Or you could argue that he is a
figure based on Saint Nicholas, or is the personification of God (and
who knows whether He is true – eye rolls), or is a very real
representation of the idea of altruism, kindness and anonymous
gift-giving.
So
let’s pass on the question of ‘the truth’.
What
is the ‘kind’ thing to do?
To
answer that question, we must consider the hearer and their needs and
wants. What is the right thing to say might be better coloured by
kindness than by what the speaker thinks is the truth.
To
press on this point of kindness before truth, consider the dreaded question ‘Does my
ass look big in this outfit?’
If
‘the truth’ for the responder is that their ass does look big,
then the responder has been given an uninvited choice which is
difficult: speak a lie to be kind or tell an unpleasant truth.
That
is, the questioner (whose ass does look big in the outfit) has
offered the responder a choice between a shit-sandwich and a
crap-wrap!
In
a sense, we can flip the same question back on the questioner: is it
kind to ask this question 'does my ass look big?' – even if it is
‘true’ that the questioner wants to know?
Feel
a need to speak the truth?
Maybe
ask yourself:
To
be more blunt, imagine you are confronted by an evangelist or fanatic who truly believes
in the truth of X - where 'X' is a religious view, a political view,
or some other cause they care deeply about. And they feel impelled to
tell you ‘the truth’.
Did
I just see you roll your eyes and grimace?
So
you see and understand my point?
And
if you do, then you probably recognise the irony of my whole defence.
My
eye-roll plus grimace is me expressing disbelief about your belief.
The truth is that I’m questioning what you think is ‘truth’.
I’m claiming that truth is something that is squirly.
I’m
also challenging whether you’re being kind – but yes, in an
unkind way.
The
truth is that the eye-roll expresses doubt, disageement, disapproval,
dismissiveness, even disdain.
And
so yes, in truth and in kindness, I probably should not roll my eyes and grimace.
I'm working on it!
--------------------
Eye-rolling
and how to respond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXW2L3VyyQ
A
case for truth-telling – occasionally, in the right place and the
right time:
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-varieties-of-travel-experience/articles/be-mean
