little truth, Big Truth
Little truth, big Truth
I’m not much for telling other people how to live… but then there’s this pesky set of hints. And the fact that I’m left-handed. Right?
They say that people who are left-handed think in their right mind. Not me. That’s because I believe there are already far too many people on today’s scene who find it absolutely necessary to not only be right but to always be right.
There are, in fact, so many people who suffer from a need to be right that we’ve named an entire movement after them called The Right. There’s also the Religious Right (who have conveniently hoisted a private flag to signify that God is on their side). And for those who can’t get quite enough rightness, there’s even the Far Right.
It is abundantly clear that this overwhelming need to be right is related to a deep (and often hostile) sense of insecurity. Such insecurity is often the result of an equally deep need to be in control. And frankly, in a world that sometimes feels out of control, why not?
But let’s circle back to that word ‘absolutely’, which is hammered into consciousness over and over, used in the sense that our righteous friends find rightness to be so “absolutely necessary “.
In the context of philosophy, an absolute is something that is so deeply true that it needs nothing else to prove or vouch for its trueness. Whether it’s death or taxes or the speed of light, there is universal agreement on fundamental absolutes. One might say absolute or universal Truth is indisputable. Unless, that is, we are talking about being right.
The thing is, being right and being true are often mistaken for being the same thing. They’re not. But because we often see them as the same, we engage in juvenile championing of the ‘absoluteness’ of relative truth when more times than not it’s simply a matter of opinion or preference.
This raises a point: that our society has sizable groups of people who advocate what seems to be absolutely true to them but is not necessarily a genuine, provable absolute Truth.
Absolute Truth tends to be provable and widely applicable, whereas relative truth is often a matter of opinion or narrow circumstances.
It is very hard to prove a relative truth as an absolute Truth… mostly because you can’t. Which explains why there’s little sense in arguing with circular logic that proves itself by simply saying, “I’m not arguing with you because, you see, I happen to know that what I’m saying is true and as for you, well, you’re pretty dumb and if I’m honest, offensive by arguing with my unbeatable, nonsensical logic.”
The world is built for people who are right. You climb in a car and the ignition is on the right. You reach for the TV on/off switch, the switch is on the right. The point being that our world is so right-minded that it shouldn’t come off as a surprise that people really, really, really want to be right.
We are talking about people who even when they are clearly wrong, are right. They have no room nor patience for error. Some of them even believe they are perfect, because once you believe in Jesus you are somehow magically Perfected. They are so convinced of their rightness that when they get reclaimed by Jesus in the Rapture, they actually tell you that anyone who is not right (i.e., anyone who is left) will be Left Behind.
This is all incredibly and stupidly amusing but for the fact that all this ‘rightness’ is destroying our relationships, cultures and planet.
Anyway, if we assume this warped concept of perfection actually exists, which it quite obviously does, then it is easy to see that it is only the perfect among us (or those who are superior, or highly intelligent, or rich, or powerful, or most followed) who are in the best position to judge.
Who is in the greatest hurry to judge? The Right, the Far Right, and most especially the Religious Right (who are actually being cynically toyed with by The Right and the Far Right). Stuffing the courts with lifelong appointments of people who are clearly more right than the majority of us is an obvious sign of stuffing the ballot box, so to speak.
To be very clear — when you think you’re right and everyone else is wrong, you’re probably not actually right, and you’re very likely not an avid truth-seeker.
Truth seekers seek the Truth. They may flinch from time-to-time under the bright light of the Truth, but they seek it nonetheless. On the other hand, people who are all about conveying their perfection, their judgement and their righteousness are generally not serving the Truth. They tend to scurry away from the light, much like cockroaches. Which might lead us to ask, who or what is it that they are serving? And from what are they hiding?