"Sometimes, the truth we speak is swallowed by the world, and the lie we live is what we wear to survive."
#TruthAndLies #PoetryOfTheSoul #SelfDiscovery #EmotionalPoetry #DeepThoughts #PoetryCommunity #WordsThatMatter #MindfulPoetry #TruthUnspoken #PoetryInMotion #LifeThroughPoetry #HealingThroughWords #RawAndReal #HonestWriting #SpokenHeart #PoetryLovers #MentalHealthInPoetry #FindingMyVoice
#TruthAndLies
"It is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out the truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself."
Francis Bacon #quote #truthandlies
#religionispoison #separation_of_church_and_state #foundingfathers #USConstitution #TruthandLies
Thomas Jefferson rewrote the New Testament to remove the divine for bonus awesome
No one likes being wrong, do they?
Remember Caster Semenya? She is the South African middle distance runner who was subjected to a series of medical indignities culminating in the decision that she could only compete in women’s competition if her naturally high testosterone level (the result of an intersex genetic condition) was medicated down into a range regarded as more ‘normal’ by the medical powers that be at the IAAF.
I mention her because she sticks in my mind with one of my least favourite memories. I don’t recall how we got on to the topic of Caster Semenya, but I was chatting with a friend around the time these things were going on and must have mentioned in passing that I thought the testosterone level rule seemed a sensible general compromise, or something. My friend very kindly, but firmly, pointed out that not only was I being an appalling feminist, I might like to consider whether I was also doing a fairly sizeable racism. She listened politely for a few moments while I started to prevaricate, told me she wasn’t going to debate me, but that she hoped I’d go away and think about it.
May we all have such friends.
I did think about it, and obviously, she was right. I was wrong. (And so, of course, is the IAAF.) Any apparently ‘reasonable concerns’ about fairness fall away when you consider that absolutely every competitive international athlete in absolutely every discipline is some sort of genetic and physiological freak of nature. Semenya’s high testosterone is no odder than Michael Phelps’ giant flipper-feet, ridiculous wing-span and unusual lactic acid metabolism. Being physiologically average can’t possibly be a qualifying criterion for sporting competition – in fact the opposite is quite self-evidently true. The decision to police this particular Black woman’s body in this particular way was, once I thought about it properly, entirely incoherent and unjustified.
A few days later, rather embarrassed, I thanked my friend for her intervention. And I remain grateful to this day, since – unknowingly – she also provided me with a superb inoculation against the TERF bullshit that has since percolated so deeply into certain corners of the public consciousness.
Sadly, when I look around me, I see, for the most part, a culture where people would sooner shut their body parts in the closing door of their Cybertruck than admit that they may have made a terrible misjudgement. A world where most adults instinctively double-down and dig in behind their wrong opinions rather than being open to saying “Hold on, I may have been mistaken.”
I can’t help feeling this is a huge problem!
It seems like we teach children to say “Sorry” (often performatively, frankly) when they do something wrong, but we don’t teach them the genuine excitement, possibility, and yes, even joy, to be found in discovering a flaw in your understanding of the world, and putting it right. It has something to do, surely, with schooling rewarding ‘being right’ and punishing ‘being wrong’, but that can’t be all of it.
If school teaches us to be ashamed of error, society does worse. Intentionally or otherwise we’ve created a world where a certain sort of confidence is considered a prerequisite for professional success (and which often willingly accepts arrogance as a proxy). Somehow, we’ve come to associate humility with low social status. If being wrong is shameful, making yourself vulnerable by admitting to being wrong can seem almost inconceivable.
Carl Sagan had something to say about how hard it is to accept that we’ve been bamboozled, but it seems to me the bamboozle – intentional misdirection or misguidance – isn’t even required.
In an infinitely complex world, where by necessity every day we formulate our understanding and make decisions based on fragmentary, incomplete, and often flawed information, we seem unable to give ourselves the grace to recognise that the outcome of this, inevitably, is that we will spend some of the time – possibly even most of the time – being wrong. In many ways we seem to have lost the art – did we ever have it? – of properly navigating uncertainty.
Some of you may know that I am (or maybe used to be) a veterinary surgeon. One of the things I did for some time while I was in clinical practice was mentor younger vets as they started their professional lives. As a newly qualified vet, you don’t know everything (heck, as an old bugger I don’t know everything either) and the relative lack of experience can make those potential gaps in your knowledge loom large.
There is a real tension between recognising the knowledge gaps we all have, and the need to appear confident and competent such that we keep the trust of the client. I’ll tell you a secret – very often, at least to start with, I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with your pet. But I have strategies to help me navigate that problem and get to where we all want to be: pet better, everyone happy.
Precisely the same degree of uncertainty can be understood by the client in the consulting room either as “This is complicated and we don’t have all the answers yet, but I understand why the vet is taking the approach she is and we’ll take it one step at a time,” or as “That young Polish girl vet had no idea what was wrong and it still cost me £100!”. The first outcome is, obviously, a great deal more likely to help us get the right result for our patient.
I can help my graduates with communication techniques to express uncertainty without undermining themselves, and try to model an openness in my own approach to the possibility I could very well be wrong. But with this kind of work, I’m afraid, we will not change the world.
Considering the number of people in all our communities, bamboozled and otherwise, who not only accept but also defend incoherent, dangerous, and antisocial falsehoods, and seek out echo chambers in which to reinforce them, finding ways to help all of us to accept our mistakes and change our minds has never, perhaps, been more urgent, or more difficult.
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[The header image is a modified version of ‘Wrong Way Go Back’ by Flickr user ‘Johnny Jet’. The original image is licensed under the Creative Commons CC:by licence. The original file can be found here.]
https://loreandordure.com/2024/06/18/to-err-is-human-on-being-wrong/
#changingYourMind #history #politics #truthAndLies #uncertainty #writing
TV TONIGHT (February 15)
#YoungSheldon #Ghosts #SoHelpMeTodd #TheVinceStaplesShow #BoldAndBougie #SwampPeople #FarNorth #ReadySetLove #Vigil #TruthAndLies #JSFamilyVacation #SonOfACritch #TakingTheStand #SouthernHospitality #MarriedToRealEstate
http://www.tv-recaps-reviews.com/2024/02/tv-tonight-february-15.html
Artificial Intelligence: 4 ways AI will reshape society
https://www.dw.com/en/artificial-intelligence-4-ways-ai-will-reshape-society/a-65181735?maca=en-rss-en-world-4025-rdf
"The rise of systems like ChatGPT is dominating headlines. Experts worry that they could displace millions of workers, obscure the line between truth and lies, and deepen existing inequalities. Do they have a point?"
#ArtificialIntelligence #ChatGPT#DisplaceWorkers
I think #Reality has long been a victim of constant #TruthAndLies throughout the ages?!
https://twitter.com/AlanJFisher0/status/1234982419603718144?s=09
I'm curious what sort of feedback this would get here...
#wuhancrisis #Wuhan_virus #conspiracytheory #conspiracywatch #mediamanipulation #truthandlies #truthisn #truthisnttruth #spideysense
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