The Truth and the facts

"The truth is more important than the facts" - Frank Lloyd Wright

We just won't let that one slide, will we? How could we?!

For most of us the facts are the truth. The facts are just the way things are. Unadulterated. Unvarnished. Uninterpreted. Just the facts, right?

At this point we could rehearse three centuries of doubts about indubitable assertions of sensory realism (that is, the facts). We could offer the ultimate trump of all knowledge - that everyone sees and senses uniquely. So? So, there's no such thing as 'the facts' when it matters how we experience life. The facts are relative or just plain impossible to take as certain; that's what we think of when we hear words like 'truth' and 'fact.'

There's a parable from India about five blind men and an elephant. Five blind men are asked to describe the elephant in the village.

One touched the lag and said the elephant was a pillar.

Another touched the tail and said it is like a rope.

The third found the trunk and said it was like the branch of a tree.

The fourth, touching the ear, said the elephant was like a big fan.

The fifth said it was like a great wall because he was touching the side of the elephant.

In versions of the story the men begin to argue until a wise man comes by and says it doesn't matter because each man is right.

But the story needs to keep going and someone needs to ask the 'wise man' a question.

The Outhouse

"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." - B. F. Skinner

There is a strong and resilient tradition of anti-intellectualism in America. It attributes vanity, pride and ignorance to too much learning, and takes pride in a lack of formal learning that avoids ignorance.

American anti-intellectualism is a natural response to the rejection of elitism (that birth or privilege determines value in life and society) and the strong democratic spirit of America's history. (Yes, it sounds like a topic we'd hear in intellectual circles, and that's ironic). There is a 'common sense' and 'we hold these truths to be self-evident' that's as ordinary as the nose on one's face.

It's an everyday 'smart' that differs from being book-smart. And it routinely warns that books and education can easily ruin a good and get in the way of common sense. Sometimes.

So a young man went off to the university to study geology. He returned after his first year and warned his dad that the well was too close to the outhouse. The dad replied that the boy didn't know what he was talking about and insisted that the well was fine where it was. The same thing happened after the boy's second and third years of studying geology, and the dad said the boy only had 'book education' but not 'life learning' and said he wouldn't listen until the boy had accomplished something.

After the boy returned with his degree in hand and made his case, once again - that the well was too close to the outhouse and that the family's fresh water supply could be polluted by the outhouse - the dad finally relented.

He moved the outhouse and a week later the well dried up.

An Anecdote

Here's something to think about today...

A psychologist at a girls' college asked the class to perform a behavioral experiment. They were to offer a casual compliment to any female wearing red.

In just one week it seemed that almost every female was wearing red.

If that's all it takes, imagine our world if we admire and compliment better things?!

Humbly Negative

Humility is most often defined in negative terms - not proud, not assertive, not presumptuous, not, not, not...

It seems difficult (as well as rare) to describe what humility is - what it looks like, how it acts, how it feels, without using a negative description.

We accept this because we've learned to associate humility with weakness (and virtue), submissiveness (and virtue), altruism (and virtue), and passivity (and virtue). Only in terms of humility are any of these dispositions virtuous.

And in The Truer Truth we've done that negative one better. Humility is not, not what most say it is.

Know what a cautionary tale is? An extreme, unfortunate, negative example - so horrific, so terrifying, so undesirable that just hearing the story of the misfortune of another would be enough to scare us out of similar behavior. We didn't have to make the same mistakes because we could learn from the mistakes of others. That is the power of a cautionary tale.

And cautionary tales are routinely negative (that is, after all, how the word 'caution' is used). And most tales about humility are cautionary tales.

So try this... try to discover a story, a tale, an instance of humility's positive example, its positive effects, its positive means to an end.

Look and let's see what we find.

The Value of Humility?

Let's face it, humility is a virtue that doesn't pay the bills.

For most of us that is what makes it a virtue! A good work ethic is a virtue, and it pays the bills. But not humility. It may be impossible to place a value on humility.

Humility is the non-profit virtue.

We don't need to calculate what humility costs us, or what price we'd pay, but we also don't need to commit ourselves to the strange idea that humility is a virtue because it doesn't have a pay-off.

Psychologists tell us that when we do something for someone else we feel better about ourselves. Giving to someone in need, giving gifts, random acts of kindness - they all have a psychologically positive effect on the doer (as well as the benefit of the act for the one done unto). But what about humility?

Humility does not have the same measurable effect as acts of generosity; it doesn't help others when one is humble in and of itself (that is, by itself). Humility needs something more to be a virtue of value.


Without that something else humility is simply humiliation.

Humility Without Humiliation

If there's more to being humble than humility.

And there's more to humility than being (or acting) inferior.

Then what's a soul to do?

Is there a way to be humble without humiliation? (Not a proud, 'I'm still as good as everyone else!' hidden beneath platitudes of lacking worth, low self-esteem, or self-inflicted insults - as disingenuous as they are bitter.)

Let's add a few more 'not's' to the discussion...

Humility is not timidity - that fearful, paralyzing fear of anything and everything.

Humility is not ignorance (of ourselves or others - pride is ignorance, humility is awareness).

Humility is not low self-esteem - defaulting to 'everyone's better than me, regardless.'

Humility is not devaluing everything we do, say, make or think.

Humility is not all there is to being humble.

Inferiority Complex

The second most common use of the word 'humble' refers to inferiority or insignificance.

And maybe that's why humility is so rare. And so difficult.

A long time ago we were told to love others as we love ourselves. That is, since we don't have a problem thinking of ourselves, caring for ourselves, loving ourselves, we should turn that love towards others.

We don't typically have a problem with loving and caring for ourselves. We don't neglect our own survival. We don't neglect thinking of ourselves.

(But that doesn't mean we make choices or act in ways that are always good for us.)

Because we love ourselves and we're told that loving ourselves is inappropriate, proud and selfish, we feel guilt. Why? Because the typical response to the obvious - that we love ourselves - is to deny, denounce and refuse this love. We're taught to rehearse how worthless, how selfish and how self-centered we are. But that's not the truth about our life.

It's not 'love others instead of ourselves' or 'love others in spite of ourselves' but since we love ourselves love others in the same way.

That's the truth.