Regardless of what someone's opinion might be, it seems like there's always a lot of argument as to what the truth is. Of course truth is very subjective because it actually depends on the perception of the person who claims to "speak the truth" or "know the truth."
In observing life from my particular vantage point, it seems to me that most of these battles occur over the fact that people interchangeably use the word truth and the word facts. Facts are not the same as truth, and truth is not necessarily fact.
19th century French novelist Gustave Flaubert famously said "there is no truth, there is only perception."
Whereas we might be able to debate the truth of that statement it ultimately comes down to a variation of the famous parable of "Five Blind Men describing an elephant:" what you perceive the elephant to be depends entirely on which part of the elephant you're touching.
But in establishing your perception — or should we call it your "truth" — it seems like the outcome and variability depends substantially on your general orientation in life.
Some people seem to believe only in a fierce and vicious world in which everybody would just as well slit their neighbor's throat and steal their food as go out and get their own food, based on the notion that we're ultimately a violent and ruthless species, only a whisker from just "going off" and killing each other.
This particular belief system is predicated on human beings ultimately being untrustworthy and infinitely competitive.
The other option seems to be — even though still self-serving — that our personal betterment is best served by engaging in some form of structured or unstructured cooperation. In other words, I can be better off by cooperating with other people rather than killing them. Ultimately the goal is the same: I want to be better off.
The question then becomes one of whether I believe I will be better off as a result of cooperating with the people around me and sharing resources or sitting in a foxhole with a weapon and killing everybody who has something I want and then retreating back to my foxhole... which I will fiercely defend against others who have similar designs on me.
Maybe that looks overly simplistic, but just consider the underlying themes used in the majority of movies, novels and TV shows: in general they draw on one or the other approach, or some combination of the above as ways to advance their story plots — or tropes — you might say.
In general, my own orientation tends to be more towards the cooperative end of the scale.
Most of that has to do with simple observation that (metaphorically speaking) having a horde of wild tribal warriors run through the village ransacking and burning everything just doesn't make sense in the greater scheme of things.
If you burn the village and destroy everything you now have one less source of food; one less place to get resources and you're ultimately not gaining, but instead setting yourself back. Which also exposes the distinct possibility that those following purely the competitive/combative approach only think in the short and immediate term, not in the longer term.
That is, unless you actually are drawn to living "a hard scrabble, barely subsisting" way of life which I have to admit there seem to be people who actually are.
However, as living organisms we are likely programmed to employ a strategy that builds our likely survival chances in the long run as opposed to destroys our likely survival in the long run. And cliché as it might sound, in many cases we have this thing called the human ego that gets in the way of doing what's actually most beneficial for us.
And that can keep people from cooperating, rather than competing and destroying.
It's not an easy set of concepts to truly grasp... and I'm not claiming to have the answers; just bits and pieces!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Sunday!
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Created at 2023-07-23 00:55 PDT
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