Dateline: August 15, 2005
The Truth
Do you tell the truth? Of course you do. Except perhaps that occasionally we find ourselves stretching it a bit or rolling it over to make someone feel good or at worst stretching it to cover our butts. We never do it on purpose, right? Not!
Of course it occurs to me that anyone reading this 10/20 years from now will not understand the use of the word “not” at the end of that last sentence. Yet, I am not writing this for them, I am doing this for you. So the “not” stays. Least we not be driven to far off the track, let’s talk about truth telling. Most consider that the grass root of honesty.
For the record, the terms honesty and integrity are used interchangeably. However, the philosophers hold integrity to a higher ideal noting that it is defined as the extent to which individuals live up to their own ideals, not necessarily yours or mine. Thus, whatever we may feel may be dishonest on their part turns out to be perfectly honest on theirs.
I digress. This is about truth telling and the truth in general. We can address the honesty and integrity portions of it down the road.
One thing all human kind can agree is that we have a mandate to tell the truth. It is, for the sake of not trying not to be redundant, the “truth”. If you can imagine, it is the bedrock of a universally accepted proposition and ethic that all men and women are born to tell the truth.
Now before you think this is all nonsense, think of what society would be like without the “truth”. For starters we could not trust each other. Nothing could be relied upon. Everything would be viewed with suspicion. Husbands would not trust their wives. And, wives would not trust their husbands and so on and so forth right on up the ladder to Democrats and Republicans. In every survey worth its salt on politicians, one thing stands out. They are at the bottom of the” truth scale”. And today that descent is worse than ever. To a person they are held in less esteem than businesses although as a class, politicians do not trust business to ever tell the truth. How about that for hopping out of the frying pan into the fire?
Apart from politicians and business people, is there anybody people trust to tell the truth? Sure, how about a Pope. Not just any Pope, for certainly there were some of rather questionable honesty. But one Pope in particular and one held in the highest esteem. An historic, noble and many say future Saint. I’m referring to Pope John XXIII. Without batting an eye, he lied to the Nazis during World War II. They told him he lied. He said “no way” lieing again. Why would this saintly icon of purity lie? Well for starters, he saved 12000 Jews from extinction with that lie and countless others. How did he do this? He used his office as a Bishop to issue baptismal certificates for baptisms that did not take place stating that all the holders were baptized Catholics. Under intense interrogation, he looked the SS in the eye and said they were authentic, and each and every one of those Jews was a Christian and they had the papers to prove it. He kept them from being shipped to the Nazi death camps.
Now remember that little comment about integrity above, the one about holding to the ideals we believe in regardless of what others might think or feel? Our honesty and theirs may be different. Let your conscience be your guide.
I rest my case.
Of course it occurs to me that anyone reading this 10/20 years from now will not understand the use of the word “not” at the end of that last sentence. Yet, I am not writing this for them, I am doing this for you. So the “not” stays. Least we not be driven to far off the track, let’s talk about truth telling. Most consider that the grass root of honesty.
For the record, the terms honesty and integrity are used interchangeably. However, the philosophers hold integrity to a higher ideal noting that it is defined as the extent to which individuals live up to their own ideals, not necessarily yours or mine. Thus, whatever we may feel may be dishonest on their part turns out to be perfectly honest on theirs.
I digress. This is about truth telling and the truth in general. We can address the honesty and integrity portions of it down the road.
One thing all human kind can agree is that we have a mandate to tell the truth. It is, for the sake of not trying not to be redundant, the “truth”. If you can imagine, it is the bedrock of a universally accepted proposition and ethic that all men and women are born to tell the truth.
Now before you think this is all nonsense, think of what society would be like without the “truth”. For starters we could not trust each other. Nothing could be relied upon. Everything would be viewed with suspicion. Husbands would not trust their wives. And, wives would not trust their husbands and so on and so forth right on up the ladder to Democrats and Republicans. In every survey worth its salt on politicians, one thing stands out. They are at the bottom of the” truth scale”. And today that descent is worse than ever. To a person they are held in less esteem than businesses although as a class, politicians do not trust business to ever tell the truth. How about that for hopping out of the frying pan into the fire?
Apart from politicians and business people, is there anybody people trust to tell the truth? Sure, how about a Pope. Not just any Pope, for certainly there were some of rather questionable honesty. But one Pope in particular and one held in the highest esteem. An historic, noble and many say future Saint. I’m referring to Pope John XXIII. Without batting an eye, he lied to the Nazis during World War II. They told him he lied. He said “no way” lieing again. Why would this saintly icon of purity lie? Well for starters, he saved 12000 Jews from extinction with that lie and countless others. How did he do this? He used his office as a Bishop to issue baptismal certificates for baptisms that did not take place stating that all the holders were baptized Catholics. Under intense interrogation, he looked the SS in the eye and said they were authentic, and each and every one of those Jews was a Christian and they had the papers to prove it. He kept them from being shipped to the Nazi death camps.
Now remember that little comment about integrity above, the one about holding to the ideals we believe in regardless of what others might think or feel? Our honesty and theirs may be different. Let your conscience be your guide.
I rest my case.
Next Up:
Terrorism
posted by Robert Cox - Editor at 6:14 PM
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