The search for truth can be arduous, or pleasant but in every case the process is a journey from our current reality to a new – often unexpected state of affairs. Our senses and predilections often play tricks on us and that complicates the voyage. There are four lanes on the road from here to what is true. The first lane is objective truth where an event or phenomenon is subject to proof by demonstration. Objective truth allows us to assert that the sun rises in the east and that ice is cold. The second lane is normative truth… truths that one or more persons agree on. This allows us to label our neighbor as a Nosy Rosie because we agree that he/she can’t mind their own business. Lane three is complex truth or a state in which an objective, or subjective, truth leads to a secondary behavior: it is 100 degrees…we should apply sunscreen. Lane four is subjective truth – truth not based on experience.
As we try to capture our realities, we often change lanes quite abruptly. There are those who never leave their lane. They choose the subjective truth based on narrative rather that the objective truth based on measurable data. Constant abiding in the subjective lane leads into the land of belief. When we posit that something is true because I want it to be, no amount of objective truth will change a course. There is no room for healthy adaptation or space for productive communication.
Our current fracturing as a society is a traffic jam caused by the collision of two wildly different types of thinking. The first type is called a posteriori reasoning; knowledge gained through experience and disciplined observation and the second type – a priori reasoning that is independent from from experience.
Subjective reasoning and its a priori style can lead to the most outrageous detours on the journey. Further, subjective truth at its most toxic makes organization(s) and relationships virtually impossible. We are often reminded that our nation is possible because we share common truths but lately our fascination with subjective visions has led us to chaos and the fundamental inability to communicate with each other.
It is not true because you think, hope or strategize that it is and we now have folks believing that there is an international sex trafficking ring, that there is an evil cabal called the Illuminati and that Russia didn’t meddle in our elections. It seems that we need to merge into the fast lane of demonstrable truth without delay or the resulting pile up will be catastrophic.
When objective truth becomes normative truth we will begin to heal ourselves.
Olio Folio 