Truth, Relative and Otherwise

The Elevation of Experience

I have a long standing bone to pick. Relative truth. I do not remember when exactly this phrase invaded our everday vocabulary but I believe it was around high school that I began to hear this phrase. For those who are unfamiliar with my person, this would have been around the early 2010's. Now, it is possible this bundle of words was around before then and I was simply not in circles to hear it before high school. As is the case with almost all societal memes, it could have been trickling down for quite a long time before it made its way to my ears. I am sure that the roots of this phrase and the meaning and connotations and underlying philosophy are from some philosopher long dead and venerated in the dusty lecture halls of universities long overdue for some reality checks but nonetheless, it exists, it has managed to worm its way into the modern mentality and has become part and parcel of our understanding of the world. And I do mean worm, as in ear worm, a song that has been put into your ear and now lives rent free like a demon in your mind until you banish it by finding the song and listening to it to completion. The idea of relative truth is, in this sense, a brain worm or perhaps an idea worm. It is an idea that lives in your brain until you take it to its logical end at which you realize that it only leads to a dead end. I am sure that I am not the only one who has done so, but I wish to relay to you, Dear Reader, in lay terms, as I am a layman, the dead end of "relative truth".

To begin with, a simple explanation of the meaning of "relative truth". The term "relative truth" is the idea that somethings that are true for me, might not be true for you, and vice versa. In the same way that a color blind person does not see color the same way that a non-color blind person sees color, you know a "truth" that is different from my "truth". And we can take it a step further. Someone who lives in a diverse culture with many ethnic groups living together in a melting pot would have a different truth about racism than say someone who has lived as a minority in an area where the demographic is primarily of a different race. The more astute of you might have noticed that these statements are true but true of something other than what we would normally refer to as truth. They are in fact referring to experiences. Now, that alone would be enough to simply put the whole enterprise in the wastebasket and call it a day, but in the interest of thoroughness, let us suppose some assumptions that would make such statements "true". First, we have to somehow discount Truth from the equation. Whether we assume that there is no Truth with a capital "t", that there is no one objective reality that we all view facets of, or that we cannot ever perceive it, making it intangible and justifies the prioritization of Experience over Truth.

Let's assume that the Truth, that which is really real, is unknowable because of cultural biases, mental prejudices, memory, assumption, so on and so forth, all the things that every two-bit philosophy peddlers on the interwebs talks about these days, then it makes perfect sense that experience is the only thing that you can use as a guide. You cannot apprehend the tree, so you only take the fruit you can put in your pocket, or some other part/whole metaphor. Your fruit is different from my fruit, but it came from the same tree. If you cannot ever apprehend the truth for whatever reason, then truth functionally does not exist. (As a brief sidenote, if you follow the analogy through, it makes no sense to treat the apple as functionally real if you believe the tree does not exist. And now, debate and discourse are not about ascertaining the Truth but instead comparing your "truth" with my "truth" based on arbitrary values and how well it reflects those values rather than how closely and reliably it reflects the whole it came from. Broken down into plain terms, the logic thread goes like this,

1. Truth or Reality is unapprehendable, either because it does not exist, or because of bias, prejudice, human limitation, etc.
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2. The only thing that we can use to guide us through reality is My truth (Experience) making all "truth" (Experience) relative.
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3. Since all "truth" (Experience) is relative, there is no longer an unbiased standard to which we measure "truth" (Experience).
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4. Since the "truth" (Experience) must be measured when "truths" (Experiences) come into conflict with each other, we judge them based upon a muddled mess of other values, such as emotional appeal and whatever the social consciousness feels.

If we were to take this to its end in its unadulterated form, we would live in a world where justice does not exist, cannot exist. How can one pursue justice when there is no way to ascertain the truth of events. The courts become nothing more than a demonstration of who has the better sophist on hire. If we accept this thread of logic as true, science can no longer exist. The scientific method is an impossibility. What is the point of replicating an experiment if there is no ultimate truth of reality it is trying to illuminate? What does it matter if it turns out that our body is not constituted of humors and instead is made of cells and DNA? If my truth has led me to believe that the world is in fact nothing more than vibrational energy with no form other than that which is given to it by a delusional ego, how is that any less valid than the argument that the world is primarily liquid, gas, and solid?

Let us be even more generous and limit this logic to just social interactions, regarding social matters. And some proponents would argue that this perspective doesn't need to extend past personal interactions. It is an argument I have heard from people in conversations before, so let us address relative truth as they present it. Firstly, this view lacks consistency as they are acknowledging that the material world has an objective reality, but social interactions do not, or perhaps that it must be discounted. In the case of the former, social interactions become divorced from material reality, making it something different from the material world. Is it then entirely mental? How is it that we project something mental into someone else's mental field? Or does the physical representation of a mental reality have no substantiality? Does a word not have physicality? Or if it does, do we discount the physical aspect entirely and only weight the mental aspect? I have not heard a clearly outlined argument for the separation of social interaction from material reality, and I cannot find an argument for it myself. Yes, when I speak a word, there is a duality to its existence. It exists physically, in the form of sound waves, but I would argue that it also exists in the mind of the speaker and the hearer. It means something to me, and it might mean something similar, the same, or different to someone else. You often find the line between the speaker and the hearer when conversing with people from foreign countries. Half a decade ago, perhaps more, I was having a conversation with a friend I made while walking the Camino de Santiago, a Danish man, while visiting him in Copenhagen. We were in Christiania, at a coffee shop, when somehow the topic of condescension came up. Perhaps it was because I was under the influence of Ergot's Fruit, but I caught something, a thread that I had to pull. I cannot relay the exact sequence of the conversation, but I will do my best to summarize. To him, whether someone was being condescending was dependent not on the attitude of the other person but on how he felt. The example he gave was of someone explaining a concept to you, and how if they went into great detail, then they were being condescending. In contrast, I felt that if the conversation was being held in good faith and that if the other person was doing so for a constructive purpose, then to characterize them as condescending would be unfair. And here we come to the realm of “relative truth”. Let us suppose that he was the one explaining a concept to me, in great detail. Let us also suppose that he was doing so with the intentions of having a clear and constructive dialogue with me. If we are in the realm of relative truth, I could take that in any number of ways, and they would all be valid. My feelings, my perception of the situation needs to be weighted just as heavily as the intention of the speaker or perhaps even more. To a certain extent, this is valid. It is my opinion that the speaker should be doing his or her utmost to be as clear in their meaning as they are capable in order to communicate. However, there is a limit. If the listener is not doing their part to be receptive, to listen and actually hear what is being said and understand it, then the miscommunication is the fault of the listener. Those who have participated in debate clubs are familiar with purposeful misunderstanding, also known as mischaracterization. The opponent will stand to give a rebuttal and characterize your statements in a false or negative light. It happens all the time and is possibly one of my least liked tactics. It is immensely frustrating to deal with and is incredibly underhanded as it does not face the argument head on and rather redirects it in a manner that suits the speaker. This is what is happening in the conversation. I have made the conversation about how I perceive it to be, rather than what it is. The fact of the matter is, in the material world, devoid of the mental aspects of the conversation, all that was said was a detailed explanation. It is neutral. It is up to the conversation participants to hash out the details. It is my own personal opinion that the listener should not request the talker to inhibit him or herself to the point where it becomes difficult for them to express themselves fully, and conversely, that the talker should do their best to accommodate the listener to the best of his or her ability. But this is purely my opinion and in this world, we must deal with all sorts of characters so, as a speaker, I do my best to achieve clarity in as many modes of conversation as possible, and as a listener, do my best to understand what is being said behind the words, rather than the words themselves. This is, in my belief, the proper way to communicate.

Let me get into the weeds a bit here. To be a bit reductionist, people talk for many reasons, as a social norm, a precursor to some joint activity, a conversation is an exchange of information for many varied purposes. In the case of a serious conversation, a deep conversation, the conversation must be subordinated to a spirit of seeking the truth. The lucky ones among you will have had plenty of these experiences, conversations where it is obvious that the only motivation is a spirit of truth, with no ulterior motives. Others will have unfortunately had little experience with genuine conversation. The people around them using communication as a means of coercion, gaslighting, bullying, manipulation. To you who have lived thus far, you have my deepest sympathy. It is hard enough to live in a world where impersonal, amorphous entities do their best to sway and manipulate you. It must be so much more difficult to have those in close proximity do the same. I imagine it must be akin to trying to navigate through quicksand, no firm land underneath to rest your head.

The consequence of "relative truth" is as such. There is no longer a single point that we are observing. We are no longer all bound together by a unifying principle. We all start looking at different stars, proclaiming each to be true north, with nothing to say which claim is true and with claim is false. What a confusing world! How useless any effort becomes! What good is it to strive for a good when it is no longer of any universal value? Would you then rely on pure will to instantiate value, to impose value by simple fact of will? Can you will value upon a thing? Nonsense. A rock is a rock, no matter how precious you hold it in your heart, it is only to yourself. Can you use it to trade for food or shelter? Can you use it to barter for a cow? Can you buy a car with rocks? How can we then claim in a parallel fashion that our individual experiences are universal truths and treat them as such?