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The Search for Truthfulness
We need to reclaim our desire for truth and truthfulness and to let go of acceptance of the word ‘narrative’ as a description of reality. There is a moral urgency to this that is related to the maintenance of our democratic way of life.
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We are living in a time in which it is difficult to determine what a ‘fact’ is concerning political, social, and economic reality. In today’s political discourse, the word ‘narrative’ has replaced the word ‘fact’ in many instances, at great cost to those who would wish to know what is true about what an individual, leader, or spokesperson is saying.
‘Narrative’ is a word that we understand. It is a noun that means an account, story, or description of an event or sequence of events, a picture of reality but not necessarily reality itself. This word has become popularized in today’s political arena in a way that would have been unfamiliar to us a decade ago. We do not notice this, because we have grown accustomed to it. Such a change is accompanied by a similar change in our own expectations. We no longer expect to know the factual nature of what is being shared with us. We expect each person who speaks within a political context to be filtering facts through their own agenda or personal motivation, and therefore anticipate that what we are presented with is not necessarily ‘information’ but a ‘story,’ a ‘narrative.’
The change in our expectations regarding truthfulness is a loss to us personally and to the democratic process itself. Indeed, it is a corruption of this process. As a result, we are either compelled to seek information about a particular subject on our own, as best we can, or to resign ourselves to the possibility that it is not possible to determine what is really true in a given situation.
Beloved ones, we need to reclaim our desire for truth and truthfulness and to let go of acceptance of the ‘narrative’ as a description of reality. There is a moral urgency to this that is related to the maintenance of our democratic way of life. There is also a moral urgency for each of us personally, since we need to be as clear as we can in forming our own perspective about what is real. If everything is a ‘narrative,’ then it is difficult to know how to view anything other than through the prism of our emotions that are affected by the events around us.
In addition to the growing dominance, today, of ‘narrative’ over fact, there has also been a tendency within the presidential campaign of this past year and the post-election follow-up, to no longer require people to be consistent with statements they have made earlier. While some of this tendency has been with us for a very long time, in 2016 it was carried to a far greater extreme. Instead of holding individuals accountable for their words, we have become accommodating to what has become a growing trend, and now regretfully accept the fluid reality of someone who takes one position one day and another position on another day. When this happens over a long period of time, we understand it to be related to an evolving consciousness that causes a shift in points of view. When the words of several weeks ago or several months ago are contradicted by statements that reverse what was said previously, we no longer can know what is true and what is an opportunistic restatement of a point of view in order to meet new circumstances.
Beloved ones, we cannot afford to lose sight of the principle of asking that people be true to their word. We must look for those within public life who are presently adhering to this principle, and require of all others that they hold the premise of integrity and accountability as a moral imperative. It is only in this way that we can view things properly within our own heart’s desire for integrity.
When we do not ask political leaders, spokespersons, or others, to be true to their word, when we allow their portrayal of reality to be fluid from one moment to the next, or to be offered as a narrative rather than as a statement of facts, we do a disservice not only to ourselves since we abandon our own innate sense of truthfulness, but also a disservice to the democracy that is the foundation of our way of life.
There are many things that change with the seasons and within the seasons of a person’s life, but accountability to truth and to truthfulness is not one of them. We must, in accordance with the deepest principles that we hold in our hearts, principles that live at the foundation of this country, remain in search of truthfulness, integrity, and accountability, and not allow the moral laxness of political rhetoric to become a way of life that we adhere to. In this way, we are able to remain steadfast and to uphold the light of truth that can be of benefit to others as well as to the foundations of democracy itself.
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