Team Alpha 375

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

Galileo Galilei

The Noblest Expression of the Human Spirit
By Alexander Green

Here's a riddle.

What is the secret of eloquence, the standard of virtue, the basis of moral authority, the object of philosophy, the most formidable power on earth, the noblest expression of the human spirit, and beauty itself?

Thoreau said it was better than money, love, or fame. The New Testament proclaims it the basis of personal freedom (John 8:32). Schopenhauer observed that it is first ridiculed, then violently oppressed, then accepted as self-evident.

The answer, of course, is truth. Yet you'll notice that the supply often exceeds demand.

The other day, for instance, a friend forwarded me a political e-mail filled with dubious accusations and misstatements of fact. You would think a message that is unsigned, printed in three colors, and written in ALL LARGE CAPS might engender a bit of skepticism. Yet it resonated with him so strongly that he eagerly accepted it.

We all want to believe that we are in possession of the truth. Even when we're uncertain, we like to feel that we're evaluating information rationally and will surely recognize the truth when we see it.

But as Winston Churchill observed, "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

We all walk around with a picture in our heads that we believe reflects the world as it truly is. We depend on this image. It governs our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

But is it accurate?

With today's radio, cable TV, and Internet, you can watch, read, or listen to whatever kind of news pleases you, and indulge your political, social, and scientific theories, whether sophisticated or naive, extremist or pedestrian, grounded in reality or so far out you're floating in the asteroid belt.

It's called selective exposure. Rather than dealing with the unpleasant sensation of having our beliefs tested, we simply steer clear of information that contradicts what we think we know. We carefully select the messages we consume.

As a result, we're not just arguing over what we should be doing. We're arguing over what is happening. We're no longer just holding different opinions. We're holding different facts.