Knowing The Truth Brings Out The Best In Us (Or Should...)-- A New Year's Message

Many a man stumbles across the truth, then picks himself up and hurries on as though nothing had happened.”
-Winston Churchill

I've used the Churchill quote above often over the years, but seldom discuss the reason I like it so much. We're now at a time of year when resolutions are made and also when we have looming before us the obligation (or opportunity) to introduce, and respond to, testimony about ourselves and others on the basis of which much good or ill will be accomplished (that is, testimony about the legal character of our earnings and those of others on the basis of which tax liabilities-- ours and theirs-- will be determined). Thus, I think a few words about Churchill's observation are appropriate, because what he speaks of is the all-too-human tendency to avoid virtue and instead embrace corruption and deceit.

First, let me point out that Churchill was not referring to someone who stumbles across a truth and hurries on not knowing what he has left behind. "Stumbling across" here means "discovering", not "tripping over". So Churchill's "someone" has learned a truth, and then hurries on as though nothing had happened. In that distinction is the pith of the observation.

What Churchill recognizes is that learning a truth is a momentous, deeply-challenging event. Once learned, a truth dictates the moral character of its knower. That knower faces the inescapable choice of moral rectitude or moral corruption.

There is no "third way". One knowing a truth either speaks/lives/defends it on all relevant occasions, come what may, or one does not, and one knowing a truth who does not speak, live and defend it on every relevant occasion is necessarily speaking, living or defending a lie, even if only by silence or omission-- a distinction without a moral difference.

Unfortunately, as Churchill observes, many human minds are engines of pretense against the hard reality of this moral choice. These engines manufacture denial and rationalization, which will be called upon to whatever degree each person's own sensibilities, and the culture in which one lives, seem to make forgivable. These engines go to work when speaking, living and defending the truth at issue is hard because the truth is discouraged by the powerful, or even just when speaking, living and defending the truth is inconvenient to the knower's own preferences.

Let me give you an example: In the past, throughout many cultures, slavery was practiced-- the "ownership" and rank exploitation of one human by another. The wrongness of this practice is a truth upon which many must be imagined to have stumbled by a sudden understanding that penetrated through the cultural milieu that otherwise obscured the realization. Indeed, we must imagine that this obvious truth must have revealed itself to nearly every mind where this evil occurred.

Nonetheless, the practice continued, because most of those who had the epiphany on the evil of slavery picked themselves up and hurried on as though nothing had happened. They told themselves that the slaves were better off enslaved, because otherwise they couldn't provide for themselves, or that they weren't really quite human, or that everybody does it, so it must somehow be okay, or that if they made noise about the evil, they would be pariahs among their fellows. Whatever the excuse, each of these corrupt individuals struggled to deny the the simple truth that slavery is wrong, must not be participated in or cooperated with, and must be denounced and stigmatized, even if only as a lonely voice in the wilderness.

Now slavery seems an extreme case, being something that has passed from our culture long since, and being universally recognized today as the pernicious, barbaric evil that it is. But think about torture... Or aggressive war, invasion and ruinous occupation...

How about "economic sanctions" designed to starve people into submission to your foreign will? How about attempted economic slavery at home, where the state breaks the law in an effort to maintain the fiction that peaceable members of a society can lawfully be stripped of their property just because a greater number of others want it to be done, and the Constitution be damned?

These are all obvious evils, too. But they are TODAY'S evils, and so, many of us stumble upon them, and then do our best to hurry on as though nothing had happened. We embrace all manner of rationalizations for our failure to denounce these evils, loud and proud, even if only as a lonely voice in the wilderness.

SO, MY NEW YEAR'S MESSAGE is simple: Eschew the comfort of "See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil".

When you stumble upon a truth, don't hurry on. Instead, resolve today to always speak that truth, loud and proud, come what may. Doing so is the difference between being the best you can be, and being something else entirely.

***

I encourage everyone to watch the excellent presentation on why speaking out is so important, and how silence is so harmful, that will be found here.

And I also urge everyone to learn the truth about the tax and how it fits into the Founders' design by which the federal government is kept too small to threaten the rights of Americans.

 Visit losthorizons.com and just start reading.

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