Top 100 Sources of Truth

[weltweit]

I remember years ago, someone arriving in Britain from Indonesia or somewhere where there had just been a massacre. They told me they were horrified to see that not one British newspaper had mentioned it at all. They got in touch with an editor and asked them why they had not covered the story and the response was pretty much - we knew about it but it didn't fit with the story we wanted to present.

So the contents of the media are partial truths, there will be things going on that we are not told about.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

pls expand / explain?

It's not just your own beliefs that are at play. Also they do not act as filters distorting some real truth, which would be compelling if only we could see it clearly.

Louis MacNeice

 

[weltweit]

It's not just your own beliefs that are at play. Also they do not act as filters distorting some real truth, which would be compelling if only we could see it clearly.

Not just mine. Monbiot for example also sees the world through the prism of his own values as does every other commentator from whom we receive so much of our knowledge.

What is "real truth" ... ?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Not just mine. Monbiot for example also sees the world through the prism of his own values as does every other commentator from whom we receive so much of our knowledge.

What is "real truth" ... ?

So how are these prisms produced?

As to real truth, well that seems to be what you're after when you talk critically about partial truths.

Louis MacNeice

 

[weltweit]

So how are these prisms produced?

I suppose, family upbringing, socialisation, education, peer groups, influence of opinion formers ... and the like..

If you were to take just for example someone right wing and someone left wing and ask them both to describe the same incident of news, in many cases I expect what they descibed would be very different. Perhaps some union action taking place, ask them both what was happenning and I expect different stories would emerge.

As to real truth, well that seems to be what you're after when you talk critically about partial truths...

aha, ok, ..

 

[Louis MacNeice]

If you were to take just for example someone right wing and someone left wing and ask them both to describe the same incident of news, in many cases I expect what they descibed would be very different. Perhaps some union action taking place, ask them both what was happenning and I expect different stories would emerge.

Try thinking about it differently; imagine that they are not describing the same incident, but rather they are constructing two different incidents. Furthermore suppose that their constructed incidents are limited not just by their choices but by what is available to them. And finally consider that it is only these constructed incidents that are available to you from which to construct your own truths.

Now can you see why I said 'if only...'?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[weltweit]

Try thinking about it differently; imagine that they are not describing the same incident, but rather they are constructing two different incidents. Furthermore suppose that their constructed incidents are limited not just by their choices but by what is available to them. And finally consider that it is only these constructed incidents that are available to you from which to construct your own truths.

Now can you see why I said 'if only...'?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I think I follow that