From ordinary experience, we know that saying or affirming something is not enough to give credibility to information. There is fake news, sometimes strikingly scandalous, whose mere enunciation speaks of its falsehood. We are also witnesses to the rhetorical abuse of discourse that, instead of proving the truth of its words, appeals to moods or goes off on a tangent, avoiding getting to the heart of the matter. The latter is what we call post-truth, that is, an attitude that relegates the truth and appeals to feelings, phobias, also, resentments. In such an environment, returning to the simplicity and sobriety of truth, so that the word is an expression of reality – adapting to the being of things, facts, or situations – is a healthy exercise to which a short book by Dietrich Von Hildebrand invites, The Dethronement of Truth: Essays on Post-Truth (Encuentro, 2024, Kindle edition).
Hildebrand says that “as soon as man stops referring to the truth as the ultimate judge in all areas of life, brute force, oppression, and mechanics necessarily replace law; suggestive influence replaces conviction, and fear supplants trust (p. 10)”. Certainly, relegating truth from the interpersonal and social sphere leaves us helpless at the mercy of false, defamatory, injurious speeches. Such an environment discredits the word, turning it into a throwing stone; pure sound, letter, or image without any reference to reality.
The effervescence of social networks, journalistic revelations and countless information circulating in the various media exert strong social pressure on the audience, but, stripped of the truth in their messages, they are flatus vocis (blows without content), which corrode social harmony. Truth, on the other hand, as an echo of reality, without stridency, taking its time, creates trust and gives consistency to the social fabric.
“The intoxication experienced when swimming with the current of a given era, when being supported by public opinion, when participating in a new and unprecedented evolution, has replaced the sober and noble interest in the truth, the respect for the truth as the ultimate judge of every theory, every opinion and thesis (p. 16)”. It is very easy to give in to the “it is said” and get carried away by the vertigo of the current. In order not to succumb to the drag of these waters, we must return to the serene search for truth, in order to discern the wheat from the chaff in the many opinions weighed down by political correctness. It takes a great love of truth and courage to affirm that “the king is naked.”
The best test bench for the solidity of thought remains reality. “The voice of being,” Hildebrand recalls, “is so convincing that, in immediate and lived contact with it, man forgets the various erroneous constructions he creates when reflecting theoretically on it (…). Convincing and evident data, and not his absurd theories, remain the basis of his responses. For example, when Nietzsche saw an icy winter road, he cried out of compassion for the poor children who might fall into it, despite the fact that in his theoretical statement he affirmed that compassion was nothing more than a symptom of pitiful weakness and decay of vitality (p. 18).” Coming into contact with reality helps to eliminate the monsters created by reason. And the same thing happens when we have to elucidate between good and evil. In this regard, the moral conscience – although it can be distorted by the continuous commission of immoral acts – does not fail to point out to us the malice or goodness of a human act.
We have the capacity to know the truth of things, even when relativism, pragmatism, skepticism, historicism, psychologism deny it. In this regard, Hildebrand asks, what is the ultimate root of this dethronement of truth? He answers: it is rebellion against God. “It is the refusal to accept the condition of creature and the glorious vocation of being the image of God. By trying to shake off religio – that is, the foundation of dependence on God, the obligation to God in which we are immersed, the ordination to God – we necessarily become victims of falsehood and corrode our basic relationship with truth. The attitude of non serviam (I will not serve), the desire to follow the temptation of eritis sicut dii – you will be like gods (p. 32)”
From ordinary experience we know that saying or affirming something is not enough to give credibility to information. There are fake news, sometimes strikingly scandalous, whose mere enunciation speaks of its falsehood. We are also witnesses to the rhetorical abuse of discourse that, instead of proving the truth of its words, appeals to moods or goes off on a tangent, avoiding getting to the heart of the matter. The latter is what we call post-truth, that is, an attitude that relegates the truth and appeals to feelings, phobias and, also, resentments. In such an environment, returning to the simplicity and sobriety of truth, so that the word is an expression of reality – adapting to the being of things, facts or situations – is a healthy exercise to which a short book by Dietrich Von Hildebrand invites, The Dethronement of Truth: Essays on Post-Truth (Encuentro, 2024, Kindle edition).
Hildebrand says that “as soon as man stops referring to truth as the ultimate judge in all areas of life, brute force, oppression and mechanics necessarily replace law; suggestive influence replaces conviction, and fear supplants trust (p. 10)”. Certainly, relegating truth from the interpersonal and social sphere leaves us helpless at the mercy of false, defamatory, injurious speeches. Such an environment discredits the word, turning it into a throwing stone; pure sound, letter or image without any reference to reality.
The effervescence of social networks, journalistic revelations and countless information circulating in the various media exert strong social pressure on the audience, but, stripped of the truth in their messages, they are flatus vocis (blows without content), which corrode social harmony. Truth, on the other hand, as an echo of reality, without stridency, taking its time, creates trust and gives consistency to the social fabric.
“The intoxication experienced when swimming with the current of a given era, when being supported by public opinion, when participating in a new and unprecedented evolution, has replaced the sober and noble interest in the truth, the respect for the truth as the ultimate judge of every theory, every opinion and thesis (p. 16)”. It is very easy to give in to the “it is said” and get carried away by the vertigo of the current. In order not to succumb to the drag of these waters, we must return to the serene search for truth, in order to discern the wheat from the chaff in the many opinions weighed down by political correctness. It takes a great love of truth and courage to affirm that “the king is naked.”
The best test bench for the solidity of thought remains reality. “The voice of being,” Hildebrand recalls, “is so convincing that, in immediate and lived contact with it, man forgets the various erroneous constructions he creates when reflecting theoretically on it (…). Convincing and evident data, and not his absurd theories, remain the basis of his responses. For example, when Nietzsche saw an icy winter road, he cried out of compassion for the poor children who might fall into it, despite the fact that in his theoretical statement he affirmed that compassion was nothing more than a symptom of pitiful weakness and decay of vitality (p. 18).” Coming into contact with reality helps to eliminate the monsters created by reason. And the same thing happens when we have to elucidate between good and evil. In this regard, the moral conscience – although it can be distorted by the continuous commission of immoral acts – does not fail to point out to us the malice or goodness of a human act.
We have the capacity to know the truth of things, even when relativism, pragmatism, skepticism, historicism, psychologism deny it. In this regard, Hildebrand asks, what is the ultimate root of this dethronement of truth? He answers: it is rebellion against God. “It is the refusal to accept the condition of creature and the glorious vocation of being the image of God. By trying to shake off religio – that is, the foundation of dependence on God, the obligation to God in which we are immersed, the ordination to God – we necessarily become victims of falsehood and corrode our basic relationship with truth. The attitude of non serviam (I will not serve), the desire to follow the temptation of eritis sicut dii – you will be like gods (p. 32)”.
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