How do you change the perception?

[marct]

Hi Tom,

It's agreed that truth, like perception, is relative, but as Mary Mapes' book, Truth and Duty, points out, there are such things as facts and fact-checking which media wonks hype as the "truth to power" ideology.

Good point. As far as I am concerned, the point of no return is reached when the logic of "I give you the TRUTH, facts are irrelevant" is dominant.

I'm not suggesting that the government step in any more than necessary to prosecute liars and distorters, and am actually recommending civil not criminal penalties against the media as a corrective.

That makes sense to me - I would far rather see civil liability for spreading "untruth" via bogus "facts".

As far as constitutional universality or dual sovereignty goes, I think it is fair to say that constitutional rights (such as a right to truth which I am proposing) devised in the U.S. do often find their way into international law, and with regard to the diverse cultures argument, I would think "truth" is about as universal as "theft."

On your first point, I would have to say "maybe" and,even if it does make it into international law, that frequently is not applied in other countries (Saudi Arabia anyone?). US Constitutional rights are, in the end, only valid within the US' jurisdiction and, even there, historically there have been many cases of organizational avoidance of them.

On "truth" being as universal as "theft" - no way ! "Theft" is a linguistic term that has a specific referent, while "Truth" does not have a specific referent, being a second order linguistic term (it refers to the observational validity of other referents and/or systems of referents). We can only speak of "Truth" within a system of meaning and/or experience (a classic problem in mysticism BTW).

Where we do have some overlap with "theft" is in the area of a "truth claim" of a specific referent. In effect, we can say that a statement with a concrete referent might be amenable to having its truth claims checked and refuted - e.g. the truth claim of a statement such as "by January 1st, 2008, over 3000 US military personelle had been killed in Iraq". This form of a truth claim can be tested, unlike the truth claim in a statement such as "We went into Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction and make life better for Iraqis" (how can you test past motives?), "Democracy is the best political system" (how are you defining "best"?), or "There is no God but God" (how can you formulate a testable hypothesis outside of a specific system?).