In the continual state of conflict that sadly has become our national psyche, suppose we can agree on a few natural truths as reasonable adults?
For instance, can we agree that honesty in our dealings is fundamental to any meaningful relationships we form in this lifetime? That lying to each other is a negative trait?
Might we also agree that greed and self-seeking at the expense of others are equally negative qualities that always prove detrimental to any relationships?
How about the fact that without gaining trust in another person's words and actions, respect can't help but dissolve into destructive suspicion and loss of respect? How can you trust someone who's proven himself to be unreliable?
Without these crucial aspects of shared human behavior, how does the very fabric of any society keep from unraveling? Put another way: How can the center of positive human associations possibly hold lacking a core of mutual honesty and trust?
Some would call these "eternal spiritual truths" intended to guide our lives from even before birth. Philosophers call this a priori knowledge.
That being the case, it's no mystery that as the numbers of lies, exaggerations, self-serving agendas as well as levels of greed clearly visible to us all have skyrocketed in the past decade, so naturally has the loss of trust in our political, personal and corporate arenas.
Words are cheap and invariably mirror the actions of those who utter them. Even worse, that doesn't seem to matter much to those doing the lying, then trying to justify it with more blathering words.
We watch them proclaim anything that serves their interests, then simply turn and walk away, challenging us to prove them wrong. Who's going to hold them accountable to truth any more? It's certainly not a mainstream national media, most of which has all but abandoned its sacred responsibility as the public watchdog.
Once popularly called the Fourth Estate, the primary calling of a watchdog press was to pursue and reveal truths, regardless of which political party was in power. Its obligation was to inform the people and enforce accountability. At least that's how I was taught back in the Pleistocene when, as an investigative team leader for various newspapers, it didn't matter who was in power, only that they were properly fulfilling their responsibilities in the public interest.
I could not have cared less about political ideologies. They were elected to best serve the citizens and compensated with our tax dollars, not to employ lies and hamhanded strong-arm tactics to seek power and glory for themselves or their political party.
But things clearly are much different now, aren't they, valued readers?
It's good that most every thinking adult who still values truth can discern when they are being fed fabrication or even half a loaf. They also can use the Internet and other information sources to realize relevant information is being intentionally omitted in order to protect and enhance those in power.
The concept of widespread erosion of truth and trust triggered by humans' versions of truth is nothing new. A man named Richard Wetherill decades ago described what he called a natural "Law of Right Action."
This law, formed from the "creator's natural laws," called for people to be rational, honest and morally proper when dealing with "the events of life and one another" because they are derived from eternal (rather than human-massaged) truths.
I recall my own childhood and expectations of "right actions" in dealing with others were drilled into my forming brain based on timeless and eternal truths. People weren't to lie; take unfair advantage of others; use curse words or treat females, the disabled and elders with anything short of respect, even using courtesy titles like "sir" and "ma'am" when responding to adults.
Wetherill believed convenient and malleable human "truths" are purely a construct of thought and become fixed in our psyche from the moment they are formed. One example of a human truth for me is using the ridiculous term"misspeak" to describe an outright falsehood by a public official. Say any "misspeak" or version thereof long enough and it becomes a truth.
Unlike human truths, natural laws are inviolable and self-enforcing. Yet mankind always can choose to follow the natural laws we largely followed in generations past, Wetherill says. And they always will require us to act in ways that are honest, rational and morally right to derive the resulting benefit of a trustful and respectful society.
So what's the answer to resolving the dilemma of widespread deceptions from the human truths we've so willingly accepted?
I'm not wise enough to even guess how to get that grotesque, money-sotted genie back in the bottle. Just how do we convince a society that's accepted much lower personal standards and public behavior to surrender the much less demanding "anything goes" approach in favor of regaining higher Law of Right Action?
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial on 09/09/2014