“There’s a general sort of mistrust and acceptance of a certain kind of, shall we say not-truthfulness,” Feist said. “But a deeper more existential obsession or desire for truth still is there.”

Whether it’s in politics, journalism, economics or the professions, everything that keeps society functioning requires people to tell the truth, said Al-Noor Nathoo, executive director of the Alberta Health Ethics Network.

“Most of the major crises that happen in government and the corporate sector — whether it be Enron, the sponsorship scandal or the Bev Oda affair — it in some way traces its roots back to a lack of honesty, to people not telling the whole truth,” said Nathoo.

The challenge is cultivating an instinct for distinguishing truth from partial truths, said lawyer Mark Freiman, a contributor to the Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto’s Forum on Ethics.

“One of the great conceptual advances of the 21st century was made by Stephen Colbert, and his identification of ‘truthiness,’ ” said Freiman. “Truthiness has a much better chance of succeeding than does truth.”

Truthiness, according to late-night political satirist Colbert, is stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true rather than the facts.

There’s a difference between truth and just any assemblage of facts, said Freiman. Throwing together facts in a way favourable to our self-interest — stock-in-trade for politicians, corporate public relations, institutions and pressure groups — can easily cross the line between truth and truthiness.

“We do try to massage reality so it corresponds with our own interests,” said Freiman.

If citizens doubt their ability to achieve an objective view of reality, or begin to substitute cliches for critical thinking, they will be susceptible to truthiness, he said.

“There is an increasing divide between our discourse and our life as we live it,” he said. “We think in cliches and we impose a cliched order on the world, which makes it more difficult to see the real world and more difficult for us to discern the truth.”

It may be fashionable to talk about the impossibility of objectivity, but if journalists abandon the effort to investigate and write objectively citizens lose their principal tool for discovering the truth, said Michael Camp, director of the journalism department at New Brunswick’s St. Thomas University.

On the Internet, in blogs and social media postings, objectivity gets short shrift — and so does truth, he said.

“Social media can be a breeding ground for fanaticism and for reinforcing ideas you already have in your head, rather than exposing yourself to things you might disagree with or different points of view. You can be in an echo chamber of like-minded people,” said Camp. “In that environment, extremism can be a problem.”

All four parties vying for seats in Canada’s federal election May 2 have highly developed social media campaigns.

While absolute objectivity may be beyond the ability of any humble journalist, a professional at the computer keyboard is capable of news without an agenda that includes both sides, if not more than both sides, of an issue, said Camp.

It’s easy to blame social media, said Freiman.

“The technology that you have for communication isn’t neutral, and does favour certain ways of seeing and certain ways of understanding,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it’s human beings who think and understand. It’s not their computers that understand and think.”

Catholics should probably draw some sort of conclusion from the fact that both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II have written encyclicals with the word truth in the title (“The Splendour of Truth” from John Paul and “Charity in Truth” from Benedict), said Dominican Father Francois Mifsud, who will complete his PhD in philosophy at the University of Toronto this year.

“Truth for us as Christians is not an abstract reality. It is a concrete reality. There is an intrinsic link between truth and action,” Mifsud said.

If we have trouble figuring out where truth lies, it may be because we live in an individualistic culture where truth can be crushed by self-interest, he said.

“One of the difficulties we are finding as Christians is that we are immersed in this (competitive, individualistic) culture, with these kind of neo-liberal concepts, where in the end what matters is the success of the market and the success of the market depends on the success of the individual,” he said. “In the end, that’s why the Church talks of common good when it comes to politics. Because truth comes to us as a relationship.”

Even the Church struggles with the question of truth, said Mifsud. We are often caught between a relativism that claims people can only know their own version of the truth and fundamentalism that claims there’s no more truth than the truths we already possess.

“Popes, especially Pope Benedict XVI, are insisting that there is a truth. At the same time they show us that we have to relate to the truth, that we are constantly moving towards this truth.”

Truth, ultimately, is Jesus Christ. But as long as the apocalypse is still ahead of us we are not so much in possession of the truth as we are pilgrims moving towards the truth.

 

The people The Catholic Register interviewed for our exploration of truth in public life had a lot to say on the subject. Here are some quotes on truth that didn't make the story:

Fr. Francois Mifsud OP - PhD Candidate in Philosophy, University of Toronto

"There is an intrinsic link for us Christians between orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Truth matters for us because truth leads our lives, it affects our daily lives." "We believe we have the truth. The truth is always Jesus Christ. But it doesn't mean that we fully know the truth." "In our experience of the truth there is a constant process of change." "There are two kinds of exaggerations against truth. There is on the one hand a claim that we have the truth – a claim of truth without the distinction with knowing the truth. And on the other hand there is relativism, which is a contradiction in itself. The moment I say there is no truth, I'm claiming a truth." "Popes, especially Pope Benedict XVI, are insisting that there is a truth. At the same time they show us that we have to relate to the truth, that we are constantly moving towards the truth." "Knowing, for the church, is not only a cognitive reality. It is also an experiential reality."

Dr. Richard Feist - Dean of Philosophy, Saint Paul University

"What I mean by truth is a very simple notion that our knowledge is true when it's conforming in some way to reality." "One of the key reasons why truth matters is because in the end all of your government policies, whatever they may apply to, have to apply to the world – a real, human, concrete world." "Nature will bite us back in some way if we are not approaching nature and our government with a respect for truth." "There is a clear recognition that truth and ethics are extraordinarily important." "Truth is not a virtue, but hope is a virtue and hope will conquer fear. This longing for truth, that will conquer fear." "In a pluralistic society one has to recognize that we do come from different places when we are thinking about truth."

Mark Freiman - Lawyer, Forum on Ethics

"The world is based on three principals – on truth, on law and on peace." "The three principals of truth, law and peace are intimately interrelated. They cannot be separated without doing violence to them." "Without truth, all of life is hypocrisy. (Without truth) it's possible to preach peace in circumstances where there is no peace. It's possible to hide behind the law where the law is based on anything but truth. You can't have truth without law, and you can't have truth without peace." "We've always had that same tendency to think in cliches, to have answers before we have questions." "It may be that political success is the result of an ability to master certain modes of communication. It's the thought patterns that are inherent in those modes of communication that end up determining what we think and what we know. Those patterns may allow people to succeed. Mastering those patterns may not be the same thing as mastering the truth." "Truth and every bit of fact aren't the same thing."

Mark Camp - Director, Department of Journalism, St. Thomas University

"Truth should be like a compass for journalists. They should always be striving for the truth, like the north star." "Objectivity is like the truth in that in news reporting it's something we should strive for. But we should be aware that absolute objectivity is impossible. There are things we can do to ensure a story is still fair, even if it's not necessarily objective. That's why we have balance in stories. That's why we have more than one point of view, or one opinion. We would consider a story incomplete if we didn't include both sides, or more than both sides." "Someone is going to have to figure out an economic model that can support journalism on the internet." "As we gain more and more experience in this new world, we will come to appreciate old fashioned journalistic standards of balance, striving for the truth and striving for an objective point of view. That's clearly what's missing in the social media." "We're going to learn slowly the value of good quality journalism. At the same time there's an onus on journalists to really be ethical, to maintain the highest possible standards so that people can trust them. That's the basis of the whole enterprise. If you have no trust, you can't tell a story that's believable."

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