20th July , 2006

SHANE VARCOE

I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr who said "Until a man has found something to die for, he cannot really live."

PICTURE: Tom Denham (www.sxc.hu)   "According to Dr. King’s statement, for life to be fully lived we must find something to be 'willing to die for'. This begs the question - are we willing to die for our newly found and so-called 'relative truth'? If yes, then courage and conviction will eventuate. At least we hope it will."

The difficulty with this proposition in a relativism satiated post-modern age, spawned only from the metaphorical parents of 'no constraints on self' and 'unprecedented prosperity', is that we have trouble choosing which 'truth' to subscribe to.

Many delude themselves that we have successfully demolished absolutes, and therefore we have before us a veritable 'smorgasbord' of theosophical options - all now equally valid. So what criteria do we use in our selection of this ultimate investment? And, in the First World West, with the sociological DNA of comfort, ease and the 'self' first’, is any lucidity really possible?

Serving 'self' remains the key motivational criteria - what will it benefit me? How will I actualise? How will I be fulfilled? How will my agenda, desires and needs be met? And of course, will it make me happy? All questions which - as long as they remain the 'key selection criteria' for our path of choice - will allow to 'pick and choose' from the kaleidoscope of theosophical thought to customise our own 'truth' to suit our specific need.

According to Dr. King’s statement however, for life to be fully lived we must find something to be "willing to die for". This begs the question - are we willing to die for our newly found and so-called 'relative truth'? If yes, then courage and conviction will eventuate. At least we hope it will.

However, what if this newly found 'truth' is merely an effigy of our own selfish psycho-social musings, a mere derivation of a bored, self-serving hedonism, attempting to find an 'existential anchor' in our new sub-cultural ethos? What then, will we lay down our life in service of this?

The good news is that one can find absolute truth - if its origins are absolute, tangible and conforming with objective reality and consistent with evidence, then there is only 'One' worthy of our allegiance. After all, there is no such thing as 'relative truth', truth by its very definition and nature cannot be relative. Perspective can be, opinion can be. Truth, however, must be absolute.

Like all human beings every time we read and/or view data, or participate in an education/learning process, we bring our own perspective and bias - which is, of course, normal and acceptable. However, when it comes to how we educate and influence others, we need to generate as much objectivity as is possible. Let’s take the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s meaning of the word objectivity - "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations". This is not the new, vague re-interpretation of the word as something which tolerantly accepting all perspectives as equally valid.

Time constraints and schedules can sometimes hinder this, however what should not hinder our objectivity is prejudice. We need to exercise extra care when it comes to truth, evidence and propaganda, particularly in a 'post-modern' culture where faculties of reason, logic and analysis are often neglected. These faculties, instead of merely being supplemented are more often supplanted by egos, oratory, philosophical opinion, orsatirical cynicism and, if unchecked, the prejudices these can engender. Consequently people are almost invariably being told 'what to feel or think' via many disturbing and often clandestine means, but are not really being taught 'how to think'!

It’s a post-modern conundrum that while positing the idea of 'free' thought and expression, it does so with the mantra of 'all things are fair, except reason and rationality'. Post modernity does so in a misguided attempt to 'protect' the existential musings of an individual or group of people regardless of facts, truth and the best outcomes these can discover.

The upshot of this is an inadvertent attempt to bury thorough investigation and even debate under the illegitimate and insidious assumption of the minimising of supposed 'cultural offence', creating a spurious framework where we believe everyone gets to be right. Postmodernism in this context promulgates, whether deliberately or not, a censuring of debate, a stifling of truth and manufacturing of coerced consensus. Culture and the asphyxiation of truth!

I'd like to draw an analogy if I may. If wisdom and knowledge are meat and drink for the mind, then I would like to posit that it is truth that is the 'air' the mind breathes.

In Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air, the author gives an account of an ill-fated Everest ascent in 1996, one that was tragic on a number of levels. In one fateful event, one of the leaders Andy Harris broke one of the team’s key rules - staying on the peak past deadlines. In desperate need of oxygen on his descent, Andy radioed to the base camp informing them of his difficulties and that he had come upon of stash of oxygen bottles left behind by others - all empty or so Andy believed. However, this was not so - in fact they were full and left for that very purpose. The base camp pleaded with Andy to use the bottles, but he was convinced they were empty. The tragic irony is that the very thing he needed to survive was in his hand, but its absence in his brain made him unable to recognise, appreciate and partake of it.

I would like to suggest that it is 'culture' - both personal and collective - that will wage war against the metaphorical 'air' our minds need to be free - truth. When reason, logic, historicity and fact are suffocated by tradition, ceremony, cultural speech codes, myth disguised as anecdote and familial ties, it becomes almost impossible for truth not to be asphyxiated.

We can hold truth in our hand but believe it of no value, because the mind has been breathing the 'carbon monoxide' of human existentialism and not the Creator’s counsel.

Ravi Zacharias, a leading academic and globally sought after lecturer, once commented that “in the last, the greatest conflagration of our time will not be over territory, wealth or even religion, but culture”.

Bears thinking about.

In part two, SHANE VARCOE will take a look at justice, righteousness and absolutes...

Shane Varcoe has 25 years experience in youth and young adult ministry; author of "Help I need a real quiet time" and is currently manager of Values For Life School Seminars - Education unit (Part of Concern Australia). Shane is married to Carolyn and has three wonderful teenagers.

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