3.22.2010

Objective truth for the Left, too!

Good, lord, you crazy Leftists. You can have your cake and eat it, too. You can revel in the success of the health care bill, and at the same time believe that there is such a thing as objective truth!

Alas, some people are not aware of this. In an article on Fox News shrink Keith Ablow, David Roth writes:
In a profession that has valued gray areas since Sigmund Freud defined neurosis as “the inability to tolerate ambiguity,” Ablow--like any good conservative culture warrior--believes in the Truth, capital T. For Ablow, Truth is both his singular objective and the center of his personal brand. His 2007 self-help book is titled Living the Truth, as is the website for the online self-help community he created around it, and he uses the word with a frequency most people reserve for personal pronouns.

“People who think there is no such thing as objective Truth are just running from it,” Ablow says. It’s a line pulled straight out of Bill Bennett’s anti-relativist playbook.
Holy crap. What are we conceding to the Right here?

Guess what. Some things can big ambiguous or unknowable. That does not mean other things are not objectively true. I may not be as certain as blowhards like Ablow that I know what the capital-T truth is. Although I'm pretty damn sure (although not positive!) that there is a capital-T truth, even if I don't know exactly what it is.

I believe in a social safety net and gay rights. Yet I also think that while some cultures believed the earth was flat while our culture does not, those other cultures were wrong. I believe that cultures who don't sign on to germ theory are wrong. I believe that it is highly unlikely that vaccines cause autism, and that it is highly likely that we evolved through natural selection. I believe my mind can actually misrepresent the world, and I can therefore make mistakes.

These positions are not incompatible with being on the Left!

1 comment:

  1. Although I'm pretty damn sure (although not positive!) that there is a capital-T truth, even if I don't know exactly what it is.

    Yes, that is the crux of it. You admit you don't know exactly what the capital-T truth is. Right wing blowhards don't. And, of course, their objective truth is anything but.

    David Roth maybe phrased it wrong, but humility and some degree of uncertainty are good things.
    On the occasions I have been wrong I have been willing to admit it (like on the individual mandate, or my previous support for Civil unions but not gay marriages)

    charo

    ReplyDelete