Truth Isn't Truth Opinion Essay

„Truth isn’t truth“

(opinion essay)

A few months ago, I read and interesting article in The Guardian on words of Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said in an interview that „Truth isn’t truth.“ Giuliani’s unique statement immediately became the subject of controversy and laugh. I suppose none of the relevant people who commented on it accepted his view of the truth, even though, given the context, which is not important in the terms of my opinion essay, it is not unclear what Giuliani meant by his words. Athough I believe – and it is believed in general – that truth is unconditionally truth, by deeper thinking, empirical evidence and by my firm general attitude to deconstruct any fact that I am presented with; I’ve come to an opinion that there is a lot of truth about truth not being truth.

It is by the very word ‚believe‘, that I want to get to the point, and which is fundamental in understanding not only Giuliani’s view, but the truth itself. However, first I’d like to present the meaning of the word ‚truth‘ that can be found in a dictionary. The basic meaning of truth is very simple – it is the quality or state of being true. Another interpretation of the word is: that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality. And the last meaning of truth is: a fact or belief that is accepted as true. All of these meanings indicate one very significant factor, which is – truth is qualified by someone’s perception of either reality or the fact that is presented to him by someone else. Neuroscience has proven that everything that a human being considers to be reality, is in fact only our own interpretation of reality, our brain’s prediction about what caused the sensory signals that it gets from the environment. Reality is therefore an individual experience. What I perceive, will always differ, no mater to what extent, from what someone else perceives. And we believe in what we perceive. The same for the facts – what we consider to be a true fact, is based on what we believe is a true fact – either because it comes from the individual reality we perceieve, or just because we believe in someone else’s perception of reality.

Truth is truth, because we are able to prove it to ourselves and to others, too, but are we able to prove that truth isn’t truth, as Giuliani suggests? Recently I’ve had an argument with my father over presidential election. The truth of his arguments were completely different, even opposite to the truth of my arguments. I call it truth, because the reality and the facts that he believes are true may be different from my truth, which I believe is the right truth, but who am I to judge the rightness of his truth? I may present arguments, I may persuade him, he may believe me and change his view, yet our truth may not be truth anyway, because we believe in our reality, but in fact we probably recognize so little of it. I still believe in unconditional truth, that is – I believe it exists, but I don’t dare to say I know it, and that anyone does. I say, all one can do is believe, but until he comes to his belief, his truth, and maybe general truth that others will believe, too, first he should realize why they believe so. Is it because of what they perceive by their own senses from the reality they see around themselves? Are they aware of the fact that the reality is affected by other people? Then there is a question, if the reality they perceive is not manipulated by someone, because it is not difficult to do; especially nowadays, when psychology and technologies are on such a high level, while critical thinking of individuals is strongly suppressed under an influence of media, lack of knowledge, material world around us and all the mess it does in our individual realities. Nevertheless, even though I don’t agree with truths of many, and I do my best to look at things from various perspectives using my knowledge, experience and a lot of reasoning, what I’ve learned is to accept others‘ truths, as much as I accept others‘ free will, because acceptance and freedom of mind are two inseparable values. Truth is our choice of what we believe is true. Truth is always truth, but at the same time, truth is’t always truth. I accept both, and I will never force anyone into believing in my truth, but what I will do all my life is making them to think.