Humans are always concerned about the Truth, a term called "de Trut" in out-island Abacos (photo courtesy of some nice visitors to Elbow Cay, Bahamas).
So I wrote this blog entry in response to some folks who really want the Truth as opposed to opinion, hearsay, rumor, and opinion, but fail to grasp the concept of what "de trut" really is.
Of course on a small island such as ours (gosh we need more Junkanoo costumes like Miss Sally models here) the bad stuff such as rumors, lies, wild opinions, and so forth are rampant as pelican on a herd of mullet. But to say that a particular source including your truly myself is a source of truth is a losing endgame ... because anybody will tell you there's no such thing as the Truth.
Sorry to belabor the issue, but truth (lower case) is a myriad of views and opinions and approaches in itself, which can be legal, philosophical, medical, engineering, physical, and heck, about any science, religion, snake-oil salesman, or blow-hard that happens to travel down the road. It turns out that gossip has a key function for us monkey-like people because (1) we love gossip and (2) gossip helps us learn the truth!
What is best about our human/monkey system is that we love to expose the gossipers we don't like as being untruthful rubes and liars. No I'm serious, you can trash all those lofty goals of plausibility, cause and effect, reasonable doubt. If you pick up a rock in your hand and say "this is a rock" I can debate you as to it's "rock-iddity" if you want. I think we've been doing this since the Neanderthal days.
In closing, it is strange that as we have more knowledge base and mental power than ever, we have less and less of a grasp on "de Trut."
6 comments:
Most true polemic you have ever written Sammy...Rhetorically, of course.
I don't know, a wee bit different for a change ... I had a beer and some fun, anyway. Back to my rat-killing and squashing fake facts! /Sam
Sounds like either someone pissed you off or you just had an epiphany...of sorts.
Hope all is well.
MLeahy
Hi Mike ... more like a can of inspiration followed by a Rita of awakening.
But yeah, people are always wanting to "check the facts" when the facts themselves might be a crock of half-baked hooey.
Take those estimates of how many illegal aliens from Mexico and South America might be in the US - the current estimate is something like 12 million.
But that number, 12 million, is NOT a fact. The fact is nobody knows how many are living here! If they were all legal we'd have them on the list! Give me a break...
Glad everything is OK. The problem lies in just that, nobody knows "exactly" how many illegals are here. My best guess is that is closer to 12 million than 12;-)
MLeahy
Wouldn't it be refreshing if we could get, "De Trut Mon" about what is REALLY going on in Iraq?!
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