Robert Gale Ongley

Tag: truth

  • HAS JOURNALISM BEEN ABANDONED? (PART THREE)

    In working toward an answer to the above question, we have established that news organizations have become increasingly biased in their reporting and thus less trusted by the public at large. Political agendas leaning left or right result in a slanting of the information provided to sway our opinion in a direction desired by those running those media outlets.

    The goal of this final post on this topic is to address what this accusation is really saying and to see just how much truth there is to it. To do so, let’s take a look at the source.

    Rush Limbaugh

    It was on a recent broadcast of this conservative talk show host that I heard him make this declaration. It was probably in October of this year. Chances are he’s been saying this for a long time and that it has been echoed by other conservative talking heads. On Limbaugh’s website, I found the text of one conversation he had with a caller on September 25, 2020. The title for this on the website is “We’re in the Midst of a Violent Revolution Started by the Left, Not by Us!”

    Limbaugh refers to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and an interview he did with Anderson Cooper of CNN. He was asked by Cooper about whether he was surprised that the president said he might not be accepting of a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the election. Friedman said “it’s stunning, but it’s not surprising.” He went on to say that we have a president saying he will either win the election or delegitimize the election. Limbaugh questioned the sanity of the journalist, claiming Trump didn’t say those things and that Hillary Clinton had actually suggested to Biden that he never concede if he lost the election.

    Limbaugh continued, stating that the mainstream media doesn’t understand how it is perceived. “I’ll tell you how you’re seen. You’re not seen as fair. You’re not seen as objective. It isn’t even biased. It’s so far beyond bias what you people are. You have abandoned journalism. You have all become activists who exist for one reason, and that is to defeat, however you think it’s necessary, Donald Trump. And journalism obviously is not enough to get that done, so you’ve had to become activists.”

    It has been a longstanding complaint of Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts that the media is liberal and doesn’t offer balanced coverage of world affairs, international or domestic. I hadn’t heard them make this charge, though, that journalism has simply been abandoned for the sake of furthering their agenda. Limbaugh and the others probably consider themselves journalists who are giving us the truth. Fox News trumpets their “fair and balanced” coverage. The approach by all of these conservative media toward journalism has long been called into question for its lack of objectivity.

    Where Do We Stand?

    While I do believe there are valid grounds supporting claims of biased journalism on both sides and plenty of reporting that is plain sensationalism, I think it’s going too far to say journalism has been abandoned.

    A friend of mine who is a writer and publisher went on a cruise with an organization of journalists shortly after Trump was elected. There was a great deal of concern about his attitude toward the press. They feared for the direction of the country and for their freedom to express the truth as they saw it. While they may have had an agenda that leaned left and even openly favored one side over the other, there was still an intention on the part of these journalists to use some degree of truth and honesty in giving us the news.

    I realize now that Limbaugh was targeting journalists for their reporting of political and social events, not necessarily all of what goes on in the world. Local news is reported and investigated with far less agenda in my opinion. Coverage of non-political matters such as philanthropy or sports or human interest stories or daily weather requires no slants, so they are usually straight journalism. No opinions needed. Still, even in the political and social arena, I believe a great deal of journalistic reporting occurs without commentary.

    There must be many examples of this in today’s world. The COVID-19 pandemic has been politicized and there are many opinions about it from many sides, but I see in local news a reporting of the facts (as they understand them) based on official numbers. Field correspondents covering war and weather catastrophes are out there providing an accurate picture of the events they’re covering. Investigative reports into hallowed organizations such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America and the Red Cross have given us truths that needed to be revealed when no one wanted to hear them. This is journalism.

    Don’t Give Up

    May the pendulum swing back the other way. We need more unbiased presentation of the news, less agenda-driven journalism. We could certainly use more information on how to build unity, less divisive commentary. But journalism has not been abandoned and we should not abandon a pursuit of the truth. We should demand it.

  • THE TRIVIALIZATION OF TRUTH

    I see that spirit in the people of the world in the face of pandemic. We’re taking ourselves out of social circulation, for the most part, in consideration of the greater good. We have been given real facts by relevant health organizations. At great inconvenience and disruption of our lives, we have altered our standard mode of living in a collective effort to mitigate the spread of a deadly virus. This is quite an accomplishment in itself.

    While I do accept that the fundamental basics of what we’re being told about COVID-19 are true, I can’t help thinking the information about the ongoing statistics and the prospects for the future are being obfuscated. This may be partially unintentional, as it’s difficult to report on numbers that are complex and constantly changing. Out of desperation, the future can be looked upon with false fear or false hope. It can also be misrepresented to secure political gain.

    The scope of this article goes much further than assessing the handling of truth in reaction to the effects of the coronavirus. It goes back many years. Just how long has truth been losing its grip on the conscience of humankind?

    When Truth Was Esteemed

    In today’s Information Age, it is sad indeed that truth is so often seen to be unimportant. A version of the so-called truth is passed off as “alternative facts” by some of the most cynical. Throughout the history of the human race, there have probably been many times when truth was tossed aside as an inconvenience for those who wanted money, power or better circumstances of any kind. But it wasn’t always that way. Although there were no doubt always dishonest people, there have been many more to whom truth was greatly valued.

    Ancient Persian children were instructed in morals as well as physical skills. They were to draw the bow and to speak the truth. In the time of the Old Testament, the Hebrews made it clear that being truthful was part of being a good person and a follower of God. Aristotle called truth “noble and praiseworthy.”

    Thomas Jefferson wrote repeatedly about truth and often in regard to being fearless when it came to having the truth known about him. My favorite quote of his on the general subject is, “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

    Henry David Thoreau shed light on the potential for erosion of the truth when he wrote, “If we dealt only with the false and dishonest, we should at last forget how to speak truth.”

    In an article titled, The Virtue of Truth, Reverend Professor J. Radford Thomson stated, “Among the morally cultivated, truth is regarded, not only as obligatory and as contributive to the well-being of society, but also as beautiful and admirable, and even as a mark of good breeding. On the other hand, untruthfulness is regarded, not only as always a vice and sometimes a crime, and as a sin against God, but also as a deformity, a moral degradation, and as a fault peculiarly mean and base.”

    What Went Wrong

    I submit that our commitment to truth, integrity and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you began to unravel with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Its origin is traced to England in 1760, but it wasn’t up to full speed until about 1840 when it spread to other parts of the world.

    I have long suspected that the Industrial Revolution was a turning point in degrading our societal evolution. My research for this article led me to an excellent article supporting my theory, at least addressing the basics of how the Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the erosion. The article is titled Some Ethical Consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Written by R. Austin Freeman, it was published in the International Journal of Ethics in 1923.

    Freeman discusses the industrial arts of ancient craftsmen and how their most important considerations were “1. Function of the thing produced, conceived in terms of the consumer’s needs. 2. Material, conceived in terms of function. 3. Technique, conceived in terms of material. 4. Appliances, conceived in terms of technique.” The result was a product of high quality and durability.

    With the Industrial Revolution, machines became the key to production. This quickly led to adaptation to the limitations of the machine, thus lower standards and less regard for the consumer. Freeman observed that the order of precedence in production was reversed, as such, “1. Appliance used. 2. Technique, conceived in terms of the capabilities of the appliance. 3. Material, conceived in terms of its suitability to the technique. 4. Function, conceived in terms of the consumer’s needs.”

    The broker of the deal and the salesman, not the artisan, make the connection with the consumer. There’s a lack of pride in the product and an increased chance of fraud in the chain of commerce. As the decades and centuries pass, honesty and truth have become more and more removed from the commitment to the welfare of one’s neighbor that was so important to the early craftsmen.

    Freeman sums it up. “And this ethical atrophy represents the subsidence to a lower level of essential civilization. For civilization, as we have agreed, is based upon the recognition by man of his duty toward his neighbor; of which none can be more obvious than that of honesty and fair dealing. Truly it is a steep descent from the Ora et Labora of the ancient craftsman whose very industry was worship, whose handiwork was a pious offering, to the industrial magnate, sitting in the seats of the mighty and murmuring to himself: ‘Put money in thy purse; honestly if thou canst, but–put money in thy purse.’ “

    Conclusion

    The disconnect between the corporate giant and the people it serves opens the way for lust for wealth and power. The love of truth and justice get lost in the process. Thus, truth is made trivial. And here we are.

  • ON MAGICAL THINKING

    It has been suggested to me recently that I’m inclined toward magical thinking. It’s set me to thinking, analytically that is. It doesn’t come as a surprise that I would be seen as a magical thinker. I’m a believer in a lot of stuff, probably bordering on naive at times. I don’t see myself as gullible, but I tend to believe all things are possible. I have a deep sense that everything happens for a reason. I believe that our identity lies in our spiritual nature, not in our names or bodies. I see complete understanding (enlightenment) as our destiny individually and collectively. But I haven’t always been right in my beliefs. So, I’ve decided to take a closer look at magical thinking versus critical thinking. Perhaps we can all benefit from greater clarity along these lines.

    What is Magical Thinking?

    I’ve had the impression it meant different things to different people. To provide a thread of consistency, I’ve now found a few definitions I’ll share with you.

    From Brittanica.com: “Magical thinking, the belief that one’s ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world. Magical thinking presumes a causal link between one’s inner, personal experience and the external physical world. Examples include beliefs that the movement of the Sun, Moon, and wind or the occurrence of rain can be influenced by one’s thoughts or by the manipulation of some type of symbolic representation of these physical phenomena.”

    From Psychology Today.com: Dr. Alex Lickerman writes, “Magical thinking is defined as believing that one event happens as a result of another without a plausible link of causation.” He follows this with an excellent discussion about what constitutes magical thinking and what does not. Among many others, he makes the point that truth is largely subjective, but we must be sure to maintain a healthy skepticism when coming to any conclusions.

    From Scientific American.com: “ ‘Magical thinking’ (as it has been called) is defined as the belief that an object, action or circumstance not logically related to a course of events can influence its outcome.”

    Critical Thinking

    The Oxford Dictionary defines critical thinking as “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.”

    Here’s a more sweeping description from the website criticalthinking.org: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

    The Envelope, Please

    Based on what we’ve just read, it would seem a person would have to be a fool to consider magical thinking as superior to critical thinking. Being a critical thinker means using actual proof versus belief or blind faith…working with scientific method as opposed to someone’s word or one’s own intuition…determining answers to questions without bias, rejecting findings that don’t stand up to the scrutiny of logic.

    I can’t argue with that, as far as it goes. Admittedly, it goes pretty far. Science does have its limitations, however. Ponder this for a moment. Of all that is knowable in this universe, what percentage of it has science proven to be true. Must it not be infinitesimal? And doesn’t science deal primarily with matter, energy, and space? There are still frontiers on this planet alone that are largely awaiting investigation, such as the deep ocean or the plane of quantum fields. The full workings of the mind are far from understood by scientists. They are good at what they do, but there’s so much they haven’t done.

    By the way, science evolves. Many of its discoveries of truth are eventually proven untrue and replaced with better ones.

    What Do You Know?

    I submit the concept that we can know things without having performed experiments to prove them. Here are some common examples.

    1. People can realize who is calling them before the phone rings.
    2. I think, therefore I am.
    3. Having certainty of an ability to do a challenging task.
    4. Understanding truth when it is realized.
    5. Sensing a bond of friendship.

    These are levels of knowing that are personal and unshakable if we just accept our capability to know. Can transference of this knowing into intention and exerting it upon the exterior world only through thought have observable influence? Is this merely magical thinking or is there some potential in this type of thinking? At this stage of our development, it’s a matter of faith, but there are cases where people have made convincing demonstrations of “mind over matter.”

    The Truth Within

    Critical thinking is a vital part of our survival skills. The human brain gives us this talent we should never waste. By the same token, some of the great minds in history have told us “Truth lies within.”

    Within lies conscience, untapped love, compassion and wisdom reflected back to us if we will just look in honest inquiry. There is so much to be found and this too should not be wasted. Carl Jung stated it magnificently. “Your vision becomes clear when you look inside your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”