To Tell the Truth—or Not
From a social perspective, truth is a matter of consensus and so the analysis of truth in society will involve methods on the Consensus diagonal.
However, when it comes to acknowledgement of painful truths around a universally recognized traumatic event, then the issue is whether people believe that openness is required, which engages methods on the Conviction diagonal.
Aspirations for Societal Truth
Societies and cultures differ in their orientation to truth.
Because truth and reality are intrinsically contestable,
- a society that aspires to truth requires freedom for members, and must tolerate controversy amongst them; while....
- a society that fears social truth, aspires to conformity and its members welcome enslavement.
Controversy or Conformity
can be used to enable effective and meaningful debates, where opponents respect each other and the debates are structured to be fair to all sides.
Truth is inhibited when dialogue consists of ideas that are temporarily fashionable or faddish. At a more sophisticated level, there is simply mindless recycling of orthodox positions with no concern to engage with the issue.
Freedom or Enslavement
can be used to provide a free press, support freedom of association, and empower diverse beliefs.
Truth is inhibited by the use of sound bites or slogans, and adherence to political correctness.
enables a cultural flowering or degenerates into personality cults.
Handling Painful Societal Truth
Every person and every social group has to choose whether to come to grips with certain truths of their present or past that are intrinsically painful. The distressing events may flow from loss or from violence, and the pain is associated with a mix of emotions: guilt, humiliation, anger, grief.
Truth involves asserting beliefs, and the handling of painful social truths is therefore managed well or poorly by using language methods on the Conviction Diagonal.
The result of handling under the influence of positivity is: Atonement, which can lead to forgiveness and reconciliation.
The result of handling under the influence of negative forces is: Infamy, which will lead to perversion and suppression.
Reconciliation or Perversion
enable support groups and reconciliation meetings to take place in a natural way that facilitates emotional release.
Negative communicationsare characterized by blaming, maligning, scapegoating and ,
enables leaders of the process to determine the principles that apply: both principles that were violated to generate the pain, principles required to manage the healing process, and principles that need to be adhered to in the future to avoid a repeat.
Negative communicationsare characterized by attempts to re-write history and appeal to false or dishonest principles in order to pervert justice.
Forgiveness or Suppression
is used to enable participants to report in minute and often excruciating detail exactly what happened or what was done.
Negative communicationsare characterized by equally detailed accounts that are wilfully misleading or false.
is required to penetrate the all-too-human nature of the traumatic events and enable catharsis and transformation through a creative process.
Negative communicationsare characterized by social prohibitions, self-censorship, creativity-to-order.
- Consider implications for social leadership.
- Apply to religion.
- Return to Review.
Originally posted: 15-Mar-2023.