Ain't That the Truth.

I am a skeptic. One does not get to old age without getting wary of what folks say, even if it is in the Bar with a couple of fine wines.  In vino veritas, but not always. I do not always agree with what people in the bars say. That's why I sometimes have to interject a few cautions. What a person thinks and says - when they do bother to think at all - is not to be taken holus bolus as 'true'. Heck, I don't even believe everything I think either. I have to subject whatever pops into my mind (from whence, I have no idea) to 'tests' of truthfulness. But I am an old fashioned fellow and hear that we are living in a Post-Truth age.

I do not believe it !!

We had cause to ponder this strange turn the other evening when Jim Ball put his mug down and passed to us a 'Random Note'. I like it when folk do that: just give pause for thought. Most of what passes through our heads as 'thoughts' originates in what others have said. Ponder we must.

Random Note — Truth

You often hear these days, as we did during the Kavanaugh hearings, about how Christine Blasey Ford “told her truth”. We hear that expression a lot. That everyone has their own truth or that there are many truths.

There may be many opinions or various and varied recollections but there can only ever be one truth. It’s binary. 

It is or it isn’t. It’s on or off. It’s true or false.

Everything outside that is just spin, propaganda and lies designed to distort and deceive.

The idea that there are many truths is another arrow in the quiver of postmodernism, designed to break down, twist and distort reality and confuse so as to create doubt as to right and wrong.

All of a sudden values are shifted and anything goes.

Even now that I understand what has happened and how, I still can’t get my head around how they’ve got away with it and how so many, seemingly intelligent people have accepted such total and absolute Alice in Wonderland nonsense.

In a previous life I used to talk about what I called “the wacky hall of mirrors”, a reference to the mirror maze of sideshow alley, where everything was concave and convex and totally twisted and distorted.

That wacky hall of mirrors is our new reality.

Melanie Phillips made the point in her interview with John Anderson that when you destroy or rework the basic and fundamental concept of truth,...... 

the corollary is that there can’t be any such thing as a lie.

How does that work in interpersonal relationships or in business or politics.?

We can see how it works in business and politics. The great Global Warming Scam is an instance. 

We are told, repeatedly, incessantly by the media and politicians that the sea levels are rising and we will be roooooned as well as marooned.

It is a load of bollox, but all too many take it as True.

Despite the facts. 

Despite the evidence of their own eyes. 

The Powers that Be cannot be deliberately telling us lies, can they? 

There is the entirely worrisome pair of isses at play. That the actually believe it to be true (in which case they are ignorant and perhaps stupid) and/or that they are deliberately distorting reality in order to benefit from what it costs you and I. 

Think on that.

Only 2 years ago, in November 2016, the word “post-truth” was nominated as the word of the year by the Oxford dictionary and I recall wrestling with this at the time (and still do) thinking how the hell did we get here?

The Washington Post at the time wrote it up, this:

“..It's official: Truth is dead —- The dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief..”

Got that!!! Emotion, belief and feelings trump figures and facts. Forget the reality of scoreboard. That is so 1980’s.

The truth is now offensive. 

The truth is therefore, hate speech.

At the risk of sounding Biblical, this is truly Satanic and evil stuff. Truth is dead? There are many truths?

We are seriously living in very dark times.

A new dark age has descended and it seems that the phrase “you can’t handle the truth” is no longer just a Jack Nicholson throw away line from A Few Good Men.

The early 18th century ushered in the Age of Enlightenment where reason, logic, and observable truth were adopted as the guiding and collective lodestars and civilising forces of society and Western Civilisation. Gone we’re the days of the heretic and burning at the stake of those who disagreed.

Ok,so we don’t burn people at the stake anymore we just shut people down. We burn them metaphorically instead. Those who hold to a heterodox view are heretics and are cast out.

As we saw with the attempted burning at the stake of Brett Kavanaugh, if you’re accused you are automatically guilty. In a matter of just 40 or so years logic and reason and due process have been turned on its head.

You can see why Melanie Phillips titled her 2009 book, “The world turned upside down”

It seems that we’re back from whence we came. Back to 1714 and are now re-entering The Endarkenment.

We could see where Jim was coming from and what he was on about. He took it a bit further though, Or is is deeper? I had to pull a few ponder-pints for several customers thirsty for the truth.

Idle Thoughts — Language

Have you noticed in recent times if you say something, even a statement of the obvious backed up with cold, hard facts or just something that the other party disagrees with, your comments are automatically regarded as hate speech.

The reason is twofold. A.. It’s designed to shut down the conversation and, B..Because they know they are clueless and have no idea, shutting you down, ending discussion and moving on, avoids their humiliation.

Have you also noticed that if you try to convince them they’re wrong or there’s more than just one idea, angle or opinion, that’s bullying and harassment, or even worse, abuse

If you speak favourably of Western civilisation you are automatically regarded as a bigot and a racist.

Have you also noticed how ordinary, every day conversation, like, “what’s on television” or “will we get Chinese or Thai takeaway for dinner”, has become a “debate”?

He could have gone on a while but I had some tables to wipe. While off doing that  I considered the 'Way, the Truth and the Life' issue (or is that 'Light'?). Truth IS, and so it is that the Lie opposes Truth.


 By the time I returned, my friend Moira (she with the Harp) had raised the issue of .... you guessed it.... the Bible, and all because some silly soul had claimed that God condemns folk to Hell. 

Another had tried to take our own Agency out of the equation. 

I had to put my oar in the water.

It does not say that you cannot follow the rules. It says you are in grave danger if you do not, and people make mistakes. 

We are ignorant of so much, having started off with a total lack of knowledge and understanding and reaching old age having tried very hard to ingnore the Truth that is staring us in the face.

People also are defiant you see. As well as clumsy.  We trip: we fall over. We will do this often. But it is up to us to take note of the signs and do our tripping and falling over somewhere safe. And to accept the Hand Up.

So the Bible gives grave warnings. 

A metaphor might be signs along a cliff saying "do not go beyond this point". You are likely, if you stray past the signs, to fall off and be smashed to bits. The signs are not 'threatening' and God does not want you to fall off.

Do you think the local Council that put the signs up on the cliffs near where you go, are threatening you with death if you disobey the signs? 

Well neither is my Supplier.

He has laid out a safe path. Stick to the path or play well on the safe side and you will not fall off the cliff. 

Obey the signs and Trust the One who put them there. 

And do not 'test' Him by jumping off and hoping that He will save you.

Pay attention.

Seek the Truth.

Do not be diverted by fools. Even those who can harm you.

Keep your tables clean.

Take heart.

Drink up and lift a tankard to Jim Ball for his thoughts.

Pax