From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 17:17:04 MDT
--- spike66 <spike66@attbi.com> wrote:
I dont see how we can ever find out what really
happened in the 20th century, for all the accounts
seem to have some slant or spin. How can we get to
the truth, assuming that term "truth" as applied to
history, has some absolute meaning? Are we not always
simply reading someone's propaganda?
===============================
I had a reply to this post all ready for me to hit the
'send' button, (You'll find that reply below after the
separators.) when I paused,....
This question from spike, is one of the great
questions of all time. "How do I tell what is true?"
Add to this the implied but unstated qualifier, "in a
world that conspires to prevent me."
We all develop our own methods of finding the truth,
but much of this process seems informal, unstructured,
left to chance. I've often heard it said that
"Schools don't teach critical thinking." This is a
statement near to the issue. Philosophy as a
discipline is nearby as well. But what and where is
the (modern) "Science of Truthology"? Who are it's
foremost authorities, present and historical; where
the collected body of knowledge; what the standard
curriculum?
Is it possible that (outside of the intelligence
community) there is no coherent program for
deconstructing: psychological factors of belief,
persuasion, memetics, ideologies, advertising,
infotainment news and history, psywar, spin, plausible
deniablity, etc?
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...
=========================
IT'S NOT THAT HARD!!! Mostly, you need to get out of
your own way.
First, you have to be fair minded. You need at least
some willingness to hold in abeyance the biases
implanted during your tender years. After that, it's
right there in front of you.
Find someone you trust(a diversity of trusted help is
good; back-ups, second opinions, and other
perspectives; and you'll want to reverify their
trustworthiness on a regular basis)--as for instance I
trust C*****y. If your **really** cynical--you trust
no one--then you'll have to go back to the source
documents.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/vietnam.htm
Finding the truth is actually quite easy, particularly
now that we have the internet. Opening up to it is
the hard part.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who
said it--no matter if I have said it--unless it agrees
with your own reason and your common sense."
Buddha
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