I feel lost and isolated due to the fact that it is so hard to find “an objective truth” nowadays. I simply lack a website, a newspaper or another source that would provide 100% objective information without any lies, incomplete or made-up information, or bias either. A source that would literally put forward the most bare facts without any fancy adornments.
While studying history, for instance, there are so many “BUTs” and “HOWEVERs” and “AT THE SAME TIME’s) every single minute; how can one formulate a complete view on, for example, a politician if every piece of information is relative and possibly biased so that some love him and some hate him?
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An observant point.
Whenever I ask myself questions like this, I find that it is helpful to mentally go a step or two deeper. Ask the question why, and then ask it again.
In my opinion, one of the largest issues with the media nowadays isn’t bias, or lack of objectivity, or honesty, or fairness. It’s the root issue that leads to those.
In fact, that root issue is the root issue behind a lot of politics issues. The problem is with the people. Now that could come across as harsh or even hateful, but think about it for a moment. Every one of these issues can be traced back to the fallible nature of mankind. We are all (not some, all) quite imperfect, I’d even say broken. Sure, some people do a better than normal job of hiding or avoiding those problems, or positioning themselves so that others don’t see those problems as being issues, but they’re still there. And when you get a lot of imperfect people together and ask them to figure out complicated, issues, then have other people hyper-analyse how well they are doing with it… well, that’s a recipe for a mess.
The other thing that you pointed out, the issue of objective truth, is a massive issue in our modern world, and the problem goes deeper than the problems of politics. You mention it as ‘objective truth’, but I prefer to use the term absolute truth, because true truth is true wheather people think it is or not. the objectiveness of a viewpoint is based on what people hapen to think, not what is actually true. so, with that in mind, there are 2 reasons why this has become so much of an issue today.
First, our culture has come up with this underlying concept of any view flies, and it’s mean, disrespectful, or even hateful to disagree. The whole concept of political correctness comes to mind. We claim that all views are equally valid, with the exception of a select few that we hold to be universally invalid to avoid us going insane. We claim that truth is determined in the eyes of the beholder, without realizing that different people having different contradicting ‘truths’ is equivalent to a coin having both sides be heads. Truth, by definition, requires falseness. But people don’t like to be wrong. So we try to claim that there is not wrong. But in doing so, we lose sight of what is right.
Secondly, We try to define truth based of the opinions of mankind, who are a) inherently imperfect, and b) the people bound by what we say is true. This second is probably the largest conflict of interest that has ever existed. We define what is true based on what we want, then wonder why that truth is not consistent and accurate across everyone. For there to be objective truth, there must be a source of truth that is not determined by man. With the possible exception of the proven laws of physics, our culture has shunned and dismissed anyone claiming that they have any such source.
However, before we are to ask what source that might be, we must answer the question of whether there can even be objective truth. Some honestly claim that it cannot exist. I would strongly beg to differ. We live in an ordered, logical, rational world. We intuitively understand that two opposing ideas cannot both be true simultaneously. With that starting point, we can look for a source of absolute truth.
I have my beliefs on what that is, and others have theirs. But wait, can they both be true? If one says one thing, and another says something else, are they really both sources of truth? No. One is true, and one is not. Or they might both be false.
I could feel that I shouldn’t mention what is my source of truth, because others might be offended, or might disagree. But I would only be perpetuating the problem that I just discussed. So here’s what I’ll do. If you want to know more, just ask. I’ll answer. If not, then PLEASE, ask yourself why. I’m not saying you can’t do that, I’m saying you can’t just tell yourself that not answering that question for yourself is not important. Until you do, you will have no base to start answering questions from.
-Nathan
Oh, and on a technical note, this is a random hash I came up with to prove later that I am the one answering the question. It probably won’t matter, but just to be safe. (only I know the sentence that can produce this hash)(sha256)
0CD0DDEEAA3E6A163004D929B114FAF1BAD16E193E6534856B44EEA0A4B31A8F