Of course Absolute Truth is unknowable, as anyone who as ever had to play "why" with a kitten will recognize.
However, we now have elites and an opinion-making industry that manifestly has zero interest in even trying in good faith to ascertain "what is truth", unless that truth happens to be politically convenient at the moment.
"Like anything else, intelligence information, or alleged information, can be misused, but this is usually a result of the failure or corruption of the political system question, not the intelligence agencies."
This is a patently false statement.
Intelligence agencies are organizations; organizations are trivially corrupted by improper incentives. That these improper incentives exist has been repeatedly noted by former members like Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern and others. That these improper incentives have resulted in incorrect - not inaccurate but wrong - pronouncements has also been clearly demonstrated by Iraq WMDs, by the failure to predict the collapse of the USSR, and by many many other examples. Nor is this restricted to the US - the presence of Soviet moles at the highest level of UK intelligence is another public example.
Firstly, I find your work remarkable Aurelien, earning five solid gold stars from me almost every time.
However, a lot is lurking under the surface of this particular line,
"no government can force its staff to tell deliberate lies, for example."
With the words "its staff" and "deliberate" carrying a lot of weight. It has often occurred to me that the relationship between the various government communication bureaus and the ecosystem of think tanks, researchers and journalists is exactly analogous to the relationship between a nation's military and the various types of mercenaries and private military contractors out there.
A mercenary is not more powerful than a soldier, in fact in many ways they are weaker, but they have their uses. A mercenary can do things that a soldier can't, their advantage is political not military.
Similarly, an "independent" think tank or researcher can produce a false report that the government needs but can't officially produce itself.
The infamous "Steele Dossier" comes to mind here. Commissioned by a political party, created by a "former" intelligence official, channeled to friendly journalists by lawyers and lobbyists. Was that a government document? Not exactly but it's 1 and 1/2 degrees of separation at best.
It reminds me of a fictional piece I read somewhere (maybe William Burroughs) about an expert in obscure ancient texts who was discretely paid a huge sum to track down a copy of an ancient book that had been lost for centuries. He took this to mean they wanted him to fake a copy of the book, which he promptly did. Wash an anonymous text through a few cycles of friendly and credentialed experts and it can become authenticated. There are plenty of examples of experts (fine art, antiques etc.) authenticating the very fakes they produced themselves.
BTW, "Freelancer" as in "Freelance journalist" is an exact cognate to "Mercenary", a warrior with a weapon who has not sworn allegiance to any Lord but will go where the money is.
I worked for a government and in matters related with data, information, and privacy. And the ministry responsible of certain things, used to organize education sessions on how tasked employees were to deal with Freedom of Information Requests. The main idea was on how best, maximally to use the privacy legislation to not release information...
This by far is the most rational explanation yet of terms such as intelligence, propaganda and truth in government that I’ve read in a long time. Thanks!
I like to incorporate idealism into personal and community philosophy as a way of expressing values. For example, I like to think of myself as anarchist. This is helpful to communicate why I tend to be suspicious of state power, hierarchical habits, nationalism etc. and prefer horizontal and bottom-up organizing. At the same time I accept it's silly to insist on anarchism as the truth because I can't see how we get there from here. But maybe reminding myself of an ideal helps me think through an immediate situation and/or choice.
Unrelated: does the question of truth even arise outside of the use of human language? The natural world doesn't divide itself, it just is. It takes a sophisticated language to even express a falsehood. Even in some human languages such as painting or music without words requires a high degree of contrivance to express a falsehood.
Absolute Truth was never defined in the piece. I have idea what that might be. Definitions would help. For example, Science can be thought of as the merger of Natural Philosophy and Technology. Hence scientific truth is information that can be used to obtain results seen as beneficial to people. A scientific truth could be if I combine A with B, C forms. I can use this truth to make C and sell it which is beneficial to me. Someone else can do this same thing. So, this truth is universal. It works for everyone who tries it. Science has a long track record of having property which is why scientific truth is considered by many to be worthy of belief.
Consider a factual question that requires a yes/no answer. Can science always be used to find an answer. No, Science allows for THREE answers to a yes/no question: yes, no and I don't know.
For this sort of question, we can use Legal truth. A pair of individuals go to court to resolve a contractual dispute about what is the truth of the situation? The court gives them the answer. One of them will see the answer as wrong, but will accept it in order to get on with their lives. Had they gone the scientist, the answer might have been I don't know, in which case they just wasted their time.
Both of these ways of knowing are very useful, which is why their truth holds so much power. Without them we would still be living in caves.
But even with scientific and legal truth, the successful businessman trying to sell C may find his efforts thwarted by theft. They can be no real economy without some form of property rights. Can't legal handle this? In theory, yes, but in practice everyone would be in court all the time and no business would be conducted. So we really need a default where theft in not as common as breathing. So we need yet another form of truth that neither Science nor Law can provide.
Religious truth does things these other forms do not. And they are probably other truths I did not cover. But what their isn't is a "swiss army knife" Truth, which is what I suppose "Absolute Truth" would be.
Aurelien, thank you for yet an other interesting piece.
There are many things I could say about it, clearly I’m more of an anarchist than you are, but I will limit myself to the philosophical questions.
The term “Truth” relates to a statement, and it’s a value judgement, not a moral judgement.
A statement is true if it’s factual content corresponds to the real world.
Now, an absolute truth would be a statement that corresponds to the real world exactly and in its fullness. Since the universe in one sense can be reduced to information — on the exact position, movement, and energy of particles — and since everything in the universe is interconnected, by the law of course and effect, no absolute truth about anything in the universe could be smaller than the universe in its entirety and in all of history.
That is, as you point out, absurd. So, we need a relative definition. I suggest that the definition should be “A statement is to be considered true if it’s factual content corresponds sufficiently to the real world in order to full fill its intended and shared social purpose.”
This would be a definition that points to a statement in a social context. There can be no truth in it self, it’s about language and relations.
And it’s about reality, mind you! You write: “In particular, we should not confuse the banal fact that all truths are partial and incomplete with the idea that you can have any truth you like and all are equally valid— a position which no serious thinker has ever actually taken, so far as I know.” 20 years ago or so I was a student at the most post-modern university in Sweden. It was a an unquestionable truth that any truth is subjective, ie “that you can have any truth you like and all are equally valid”.
The professors where all thinkers, and they were all dead serious, so a reference to reality in the definition is vital.
In practice it would look something like this: You want to borrow my car. I say okay and hand you the keys. Then you ask: Oh, but which one is it? My answer is: it’s the blue one.
My statement is true if there is a small parking lot outside with only three cars all different colour one of which is blue and I own that one.
However, if there is a huge parking lot outside with thousands of cars, all blue, my statement is not true. Not because my car isn’t blue, but because I broke the social part of the definition: the statement did not contain sufficient information for the intended purpose.
So we would have to tell our beloved agent Mulder that no, the truth is not out there, the truth is in here. What’s out there is reality, and that reality may or may not include UFOs and aliens. They can be real, but they cannot be true.
It’s important to notice that this definition means that the opposite of a statement that is true is not a statement that is a lie, but the statement that is untrue. And untrue statement it’s not necessarily false, — my blue car among thousands of blue cars is still blue — there are various forms of untrue statements:
- A false statement is a statement that does not fulfil its social purpose, and does not correspond correctly to reality.
- A miss leading statement is a statement that does corresponds correctly to reality, but intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
- A lie is a statement that does not correspond correctly to reality, and intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
And then there is flooding, where the volume of information is intended to prevent the the recipient from drawing any viable conclusions at all. That information may or may not be factually correct, but it’s still untrue.
And there are several other cases, speculation or fiction, where a statement cannot be true because it’s not a statement about reality, but that can still be misleading, if it intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
And of course the cases where truth is irrelevant, like statements made to assert dominance. If I come to Aureliland with a baseball bat, find you and yell “I will kill you!” your best choice might not be to sit down and ponder whether that is technically a truth or not.
And then there are special borderline cases, like opinions…
I could go on and on, but I won’t because if my kids get hold of this text they will just start claiming that I’m autistic again.
But my point is that I think we actually need a solid and usable philosophical definition of truth if we are ever to get out of the swamp created by postmodern neoliberalism.
We spend too much time trying to find something to declared as The TRUTH, and then defend beyond reason, logic, or commonsense, if for no other reason than as a tribal signifier. The truth, never mind mere facts, become so because of what the faction or tribe you belong too says it is.
It is also difficult for some to accept that usually things are shades of gray, often very light or very dark, but still gray because they want to have it all in black and white for whatever reason. This is what allows the fossil fuel industry to lie by obfuscation over the connection of carbon fuels and climate change. It is the same with the cigarette manufacturers and lung cancer. Almost nothing has a 1 to 1 connection or correlation.
And the government is not any different than the fossil fuel or cigarette makers. When you add the truth? that increasing numbers of governments, companies, and other organizations just straight up lie, even when there is no need to, it becomes a full time effort to shift through the lies, exaggeration, honest mistakes, and confusion. Having large factions of society like much, but not all, of the Republicans, the Democrats, the Israelis, the Ukrainians, and the leadership of the EU become cult-like. They do not realize just how disconnected their beliefs have come from reality. reality.
Too many people make gobs of money from that reality, so I don't expect any improvements soon.
You’ve provided an explanation for savvy lawyers either relishing or dreading ‘eye-witness’ testimony or ‘he said she said’ evidence given under cross examination.
Of course Absolute Truth is unknowable, as anyone who as ever had to play "why" with a kitten will recognize.
However, we now have elites and an opinion-making industry that manifestly has zero interest in even trying in good faith to ascertain "what is truth", unless that truth happens to be politically convenient at the moment.
"Like anything else, intelligence information, or alleged information, can be misused, but this is usually a result of the failure or corruption of the political system question, not the intelligence agencies."
This is a patently false statement.
Intelligence agencies are organizations; organizations are trivially corrupted by improper incentives. That these improper incentives exist has been repeatedly noted by former members like Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern and others. That these improper incentives have resulted in incorrect - not inaccurate but wrong - pronouncements has also been clearly demonstrated by Iraq WMDs, by the failure to predict the collapse of the USSR, and by many many other examples. Nor is this restricted to the US - the presence of Soviet moles at the highest level of UK intelligence is another public example.
Firstly, I find your work remarkable Aurelien, earning five solid gold stars from me almost every time.
However, a lot is lurking under the surface of this particular line,
"no government can force its staff to tell deliberate lies, for example."
With the words "its staff" and "deliberate" carrying a lot of weight. It has often occurred to me that the relationship between the various government communication bureaus and the ecosystem of think tanks, researchers and journalists is exactly analogous to the relationship between a nation's military and the various types of mercenaries and private military contractors out there.
A mercenary is not more powerful than a soldier, in fact in many ways they are weaker, but they have their uses. A mercenary can do things that a soldier can't, their advantage is political not military.
Similarly, an "independent" think tank or researcher can produce a false report that the government needs but can't officially produce itself.
The infamous "Steele Dossier" comes to mind here. Commissioned by a political party, created by a "former" intelligence official, channeled to friendly journalists by lawyers and lobbyists. Was that a government document? Not exactly but it's 1 and 1/2 degrees of separation at best.
It reminds me of a fictional piece I read somewhere (maybe William Burroughs) about an expert in obscure ancient texts who was discretely paid a huge sum to track down a copy of an ancient book that had been lost for centuries. He took this to mean they wanted him to fake a copy of the book, which he promptly did. Wash an anonymous text through a few cycles of friendly and credentialed experts and it can become authenticated. There are plenty of examples of experts (fine art, antiques etc.) authenticating the very fakes they produced themselves.
BTW, "Freelancer" as in "Freelance journalist" is an exact cognate to "Mercenary", a warrior with a weapon who has not sworn allegiance to any Lord but will go where the money is.
Keep up the good work Sir!
I worked for a government and in matters related with data, information, and privacy. And the ministry responsible of certain things, used to organize education sessions on how tasked employees were to deal with Freedom of Information Requests. The main idea was on how best, maximally to use the privacy legislation to not release information...
This by far is the most rational explanation yet of terms such as intelligence, propaganda and truth in government that I’ve read in a long time. Thanks!
I like to incorporate idealism into personal and community philosophy as a way of expressing values. For example, I like to think of myself as anarchist. This is helpful to communicate why I tend to be suspicious of state power, hierarchical habits, nationalism etc. and prefer horizontal and bottom-up organizing. At the same time I accept it's silly to insist on anarchism as the truth because I can't see how we get there from here. But maybe reminding myself of an ideal helps me think through an immediate situation and/or choice.
Unrelated: does the question of truth even arise outside of the use of human language? The natural world doesn't divide itself, it just is. It takes a sophisticated language to even express a falsehood. Even in some human languages such as painting or music without words requires a high degree of contrivance to express a falsehood.
Absolute Truth was never defined in the piece. I have idea what that might be. Definitions would help. For example, Science can be thought of as the merger of Natural Philosophy and Technology. Hence scientific truth is information that can be used to obtain results seen as beneficial to people. A scientific truth could be if I combine A with B, C forms. I can use this truth to make C and sell it which is beneficial to me. Someone else can do this same thing. So, this truth is universal. It works for everyone who tries it. Science has a long track record of having property which is why scientific truth is considered by many to be worthy of belief.
Consider a factual question that requires a yes/no answer. Can science always be used to find an answer. No, Science allows for THREE answers to a yes/no question: yes, no and I don't know.
For this sort of question, we can use Legal truth. A pair of individuals go to court to resolve a contractual dispute about what is the truth of the situation? The court gives them the answer. One of them will see the answer as wrong, but will accept it in order to get on with their lives. Had they gone the scientist, the answer might have been I don't know, in which case they just wasted their time.
Both of these ways of knowing are very useful, which is why their truth holds so much power. Without them we would still be living in caves.
But even with scientific and legal truth, the successful businessman trying to sell C may find his efforts thwarted by theft. They can be no real economy without some form of property rights. Can't legal handle this? In theory, yes, but in practice everyone would be in court all the time and no business would be conducted. So we really need a default where theft in not as common as breathing. So we need yet another form of truth that neither Science nor Law can provide.
Religious truth does things these other forms do not. And they are probably other truths I did not cover. But what their isn't is a "swiss army knife" Truth, which is what I suppose "Absolute Truth" would be.
Aurelien, thank you for yet an other interesting piece.
There are many things I could say about it, clearly I’m more of an anarchist than you are, but I will limit myself to the philosophical questions.
The term “Truth” relates to a statement, and it’s a value judgement, not a moral judgement.
A statement is true if it’s factual content corresponds to the real world.
Now, an absolute truth would be a statement that corresponds to the real world exactly and in its fullness. Since the universe in one sense can be reduced to information — on the exact position, movement, and energy of particles — and since everything in the universe is interconnected, by the law of course and effect, no absolute truth about anything in the universe could be smaller than the universe in its entirety and in all of history.
That is, as you point out, absurd. So, we need a relative definition. I suggest that the definition should be “A statement is to be considered true if it’s factual content corresponds sufficiently to the real world in order to full fill its intended and shared social purpose.”
This would be a definition that points to a statement in a social context. There can be no truth in it self, it’s about language and relations.
And it’s about reality, mind you! You write: “In particular, we should not confuse the banal fact that all truths are partial and incomplete with the idea that you can have any truth you like and all are equally valid— a position which no serious thinker has ever actually taken, so far as I know.” 20 years ago or so I was a student at the most post-modern university in Sweden. It was a an unquestionable truth that any truth is subjective, ie “that you can have any truth you like and all are equally valid”.
The professors where all thinkers, and they were all dead serious, so a reference to reality in the definition is vital.
In practice it would look something like this: You want to borrow my car. I say okay and hand you the keys. Then you ask: Oh, but which one is it? My answer is: it’s the blue one.
My statement is true if there is a small parking lot outside with only three cars all different colour one of which is blue and I own that one.
However, if there is a huge parking lot outside with thousands of cars, all blue, my statement is not true. Not because my car isn’t blue, but because I broke the social part of the definition: the statement did not contain sufficient information for the intended purpose.
So we would have to tell our beloved agent Mulder that no, the truth is not out there, the truth is in here. What’s out there is reality, and that reality may or may not include UFOs and aliens. They can be real, but they cannot be true.
It’s important to notice that this definition means that the opposite of a statement that is true is not a statement that is a lie, but the statement that is untrue. And untrue statement it’s not necessarily false, — my blue car among thousands of blue cars is still blue — there are various forms of untrue statements:
- A false statement is a statement that does not fulfil its social purpose, and does not correspond correctly to reality.
- A miss leading statement is a statement that does corresponds correctly to reality, but intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
- A lie is a statement that does not correspond correctly to reality, and intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
And then there is flooding, where the volume of information is intended to prevent the the recipient from drawing any viable conclusions at all. That information may or may not be factually correct, but it’s still untrue.
And there are several other cases, speculation or fiction, where a statement cannot be true because it’s not a statement about reality, but that can still be misleading, if it intentionally leads the recipient to draw the wrong conclusions.
And of course the cases where truth is irrelevant, like statements made to assert dominance. If I come to Aureliland with a baseball bat, find you and yell “I will kill you!” your best choice might not be to sit down and ponder whether that is technically a truth or not.
And then there are special borderline cases, like opinions…
I could go on and on, but I won’t because if my kids get hold of this text they will just start claiming that I’m autistic again.
But my point is that I think we actually need a solid and usable philosophical definition of truth if we are ever to get out of the swamp created by postmodern neoliberalism.
We spend too much time trying to find something to declared as The TRUTH, and then defend beyond reason, logic, or commonsense, if for no other reason than as a tribal signifier. The truth, never mind mere facts, become so because of what the faction or tribe you belong too says it is.
It is also difficult for some to accept that usually things are shades of gray, often very light or very dark, but still gray because they want to have it all in black and white for whatever reason. This is what allows the fossil fuel industry to lie by obfuscation over the connection of carbon fuels and climate change. It is the same with the cigarette manufacturers and lung cancer. Almost nothing has a 1 to 1 connection or correlation.
And the government is not any different than the fossil fuel or cigarette makers. When you add the truth? that increasing numbers of governments, companies, and other organizations just straight up lie, even when there is no need to, it becomes a full time effort to shift through the lies, exaggeration, honest mistakes, and confusion. Having large factions of society like much, but not all, of the Republicans, the Democrats, the Israelis, the Ukrainians, and the leadership of the EU become cult-like. They do not realize just how disconnected their beliefs have come from reality. reality.
Too many people make gobs of money from that reality, so I don't expect any improvements soon.
You’ve provided an explanation for savvy lawyers either relishing or dreading ‘eye-witness’ testimony or ‘he said she said’ evidence given under cross examination.
What chance do we have against China, whose government has never lied or broken a promise?
Coherence means longer term logic. Shatter, chatter butts on the shorter term. A looser, an energy waist of.