Are we full Pledged – ?
It is perhaps strage that we expect- no demand truth form politicins. I do not mean that we expect politicians to tell the truth – anymore than we expect the media to tell us the truth ( we get outraged if they do infact) – or even in the sense we expect ourselves to tell the truth. The curious thing is not that they do not ever tell the truth – but rather the ritualiszed game of truth and lie that we endlessly play with politicians. This game clearly cuts very deep.
I mean there is a clear and obivously very profound game being played with the idea of truth – and we all know it is never vlaueble in itself – or never actually real at all. BnotIt is not so much that we do noit tell the truth – and therefore tell lies – so much as the truth itself – as far as are are concerned simply does not exist. There are no simple truths but only a conflicting and peremently evolving mosaic of believes and ideas – where the very point is that the all the sands are shifting. The point afterall of memeory is that it is not constant- memories evolve, and cahne – one ememory inflects another – that rips across it- reworking it truth – and splicing it it to other realities- or fanatisies – on nothing in particuliar- = in a endlessl eddy of living. And what is more of course we hve – at least since Nietzsche all known this. The point about the truth =- that is the acceptabnce of one particular truth is that it has to be bred into us – as something that ought to rspect- something that is real – and it out their – a truth as such – which is feindable s only we are persisitent and ruthless enough. We maybe. But there is of course another aspoect to the truth. The truth is o what we demand others to tell us. – while acknowledguing in ourselves the complexity of life. That is in demanding that the truth and nothing but the truth be told- we are demanding that a human exist not as there are – in all their rich complexity – but rather that they take one certain pose- porivide one certain and absolutel sotry which we can take up into the story we tell ourselves – and judge it accordianly. If you – the truth is somekind of frozen ‘now’ -= frozn at a moement-= where I take something of your being into me. By freezing that point- or rather ensuring that point is ‘at the moement’ – in the atmporal reality of the truth- a effectively minimise/ claifiy your relation to me. What I take of you into mere is merely the turht- it is not your living identity- nothing that can threaten me- or my identitiy – nothing that can challenge my story- or at least not fundamenetally- it is simply a truth – a fact of experience which I then take up into the shifting sands of my thinking. The truth is there effectively an act of excauatio – in telling the truth we hollow out facts- stripping out the complexities of living from them – so that they might be simply and immediately communicated as real;ities- that can be effortlessly taken up into the other. In a sense then the truth ids the moral equivalent of the TV dinner- a bland cand unchallenging conctions- bearing some rea;lutiopn to real life- but without the actual interest.
To be force to tell the truth is then in a sense is to be forced to .not to live at all – it is to be forced to evacuate what we know of as living from facts. Now this is very uself in science – indeed in a science science ois founded absolutely on this sinnlkge act of holing out - that is on this act of initially excluding the living change from the process- or at least it has traditionally ben so. It is of course perfectly possible that one might be able to create a scientific understanding of the world based of constnaly evolving change- that is certainly my reading of the power of complexity theory – but the point remains – that dead truths have been very useful in science- and have provided many useful starting point for varying explications. The problem of course scomes when this same many of prodoceing is then taken from the confines of science and applied in other fields –other truths, And this is where politics comes in. Now it is clear that poliiticnas simplky annot tell the truth., They are not in a world where truths ever arew simple and real. Of course not- the poojnt about politicial circumstances is that they are perpetually shifting and changing: Now this is a reality which dwe all obviously know., So why ask politicians to tll the truth? Is it some infantile oibession with parent figues who are somehow superhamn – and able life God to tell the truth. Possilbly but I doubt it. Or more realitisically is that there is a strange double game being plaed here- a gam that oes right to the heart of the nature of democracy.
Democracy is in its essence founded on on a lie –that oine cabn tell the truth – that one can make as a politicna promises that could be kept and that it is a good thing to keep these pormisies. Of course neither of these two facts is obvous or even particualry likely – or desirable. So why do we behave in this way? Perhaps the simplest answer is that this lie is in fact the very point oif democracy. I mean that although the truth is clearly nneve rsimple – this fact by itself makes governeming and the entire issue of governoing in a sense iunresolvable. I mena here that once truth shifts- then wielding poilitica power in a sense becomes necessarily arbitary and persona. Each person acts as they find- and according to evolving circumstance. This fact of course then puts as it were an interable burden on those trust to rule. As situation evolve they are prone to change within them – and become increasingly arbitary and unjust in their action. That is – and again we all know this power warps minds – and warps then through the fact that that as ciricumstances change and change according to actions which prduce necessarily different results to the ones they were meant to – politicians are couaght up in a perpetual whirl of personal change- and evolution – they then over identifiy the way they ae changing with the way the world is changing- and mistake their own identitiy with the worlds- with the ususal barabaric and tradjic consequebnces.
This is of course where the truth – the myth of a hol;loed out world comes in. Our belief in telling the truth – a fact that I itself impossible – transforms and effectively personalized the entire situation. The politician can no longer simple over identify changijg political realtieis with their own changing identifity – and loose thensmevles within the poltical whirl – they must tell the impossibler truth – they must conform themselves to whcat can never be – andmust effectively pull themselves apart in telling- or pretending to tell the truth. Ion a sense then our game of forcing politicians to be truthful lies right at the heart of the political process., The demand that we qare told the truth is effectively the way be castricate and castriate all politicians – it is the rock we break then on.
And yet thir is a drker point in this story. While we protect our freedom within the myth of truth for politicnaswe do not of course then turn around and demand the same lie of those who are meant to be finding out the truth namely the media. The upshot is of course a profound unbalancing of the powers between media and politicians, one side is forced to tell the truth – while the other is free to endlessly invent new and groundless truth upon which the judge the ppoliticiabns. The problem of course is that one can hollow out a truth at almost any point of the effortless swril of the politicial world. Left utterly unfetted – and not having to oby any of the bporing and limiting reles of consistency – the meaid ar free to innt endlessl new truths- new points around whicjh politicians but coagulat their identity. The result is of course obvious – politicians are increasing and quite literally pulled apart between the conflicting poles and widely different and utterly unreconcillable truths.
The situation is then of course made even worse- as the polticians ansert to this problem is to invent turhts of their own – truths based on the same process of hollowing out – truths that they can react to amd prevent or aid., The result of course is that that there is an endess battle of differing turht – we xcall it spin – as differing sides attempts to constrauct differing piyres upon which they can then bun themselves according to the great god truth. Politicans are roasted on firs made of but their own deising and the deivisng of outhers – and the game is now as much about bulding pyres – building ways to judge as it its I in judgiung itself. Of course the worry is then that that profoundly unbalances the entire systm. Truth stips being the limtier – the point that forces a poltician to no longer be themevles – but rather breaks them naturally on the external world – and becomes rather again in a sense personal. Triths become personal fetishes – truths we all hold ddear – or at leas tsome on us – truth we peddle with the hope that some poltician will be brave or idiotic or cowardly enough to ttkae thems into their own pyrte.
Now of course4 this worroying in complex. It is absolutely not that we are going towardsa a ploice state- We are clearly doping npo such hing. Perosnalising truth builing ever changing fires- to raost p[oliticians on is absolutely not the same as politicins mistaking themselves for the state. The dangwer is not one of teyraany of that tradition for – and yet their surely must be a danger of quite new kind. New Tyranny is not based on absol,ute rule of a leader who wthinks thesmevles are being the truth – but ather is based upon the ever changing allgum of fubndamtelly arbitrary tturhs – which drag politicians and the rest of us with then iun an ever increasing whirlygig changing truth – and partial emulation. The changer of spin is neve tyranny – but something perhaps just as bad – namely acts based on the abitaryiness ofever evolving and changing truths.