Why do we care about the truth? It seems a strange question to ask because very few people question that truth is a good thing. It’s difficult to imagine anyone not being concerned with truth. When truth becomes regarded as irrelevant or even dangerous, the social order begins a path toward destruction. Ideologies are set against human nature. The promised Utopia is always just one more purge away. This means that it’s better for a society to face the truth even when the truth hurts, because you’re better off in the long run.
But the fact is that there have been plenty of philosophies and worldviews which have little or no concern for truth. In North Korea, truth is less important than what the Dear Leader says, even when the latter obviously contradicts the former. That should give us pause, because if such worldviews exist, then there is no reason that we and our descendants might not find ourselves slipping into such a worldview. The idea that truth should be valued by everyone instead of just philosophers – despite costs and consequences – is an exceptional one. This mindset pushed Western countries to develop modern science and integrate high philosophy into our religious traditions. With such a rich heritage stemming from our cultural devotion to truth, it’s worth asking what kind of societies develop such a worldview.
The individual attitude to truth begins in the family. Parents teach their children to tell the truth. But that doesn’t mean they always do, and how lies are responded to determines a child’s attitude to telling the truth in the future. First, imagine what happens when discipline is poor. Children get away with lying and the parents are unable or unwilling to curb this behaviour. The lesson the children learn – and learn very quickly – is that their self-interest can be better served by lying when it suits them. If they’re intelligent, they quickly learn how to lie convincingly and worm their way out when they get caught. For these kinds of children, truth is something to be taken up or discarded at will. It all depends on the payoff. How does that affect the atmosphere of the family? Instead of trust, parents must be suspicious of their children and children are in conflict with their parents. Conflict disincentivizes truth, and that further undermines trust. It’s a vicious cycle. What every parent desires is a child which will tell the truth. Punishment isn’t enough for that to happen; the child must actually want to be truthful. This requires trust. Good parents will give positive reinforcement, especially if the child remains honest even when they’ve done something wrong. With that kind of trust, the child comes to appreciate being honest with your parents as something a good person just does. They appreciate the truth because it is the truth. Trust reinforces truth in the family, and vice versa.
Let’s scale that up to a city. What sort of a city has high conflict? One with high diversity, close proximity, and great uncertainty. When a few neighbourhoods and skyscrapers house wealthy families while the masses starve, those wealthy families are going to value security. Armed guards will accompany them and walls will surround their houses. When cities undergo rapid ethnic shifts, conflicts break out between newcomers and natives. Cultural conflicts occur. Parts of the city become enclaves. This all becomes reflected in the politics of the city. Politicians must increasingly represent particular interest groups to rule effectively. This means that secrecy and intrigue will increase. Fighting corruption becomes an attack by one faction on another. It’s easier to ignore problems like crime by moving away than to face the uphill political battle of doing something about it. Truth, especially harsh truth, gives way to politics. On the other hand, people in high-trust cities feel safer investing in the community. If you’re certain that your tax dollars will go into better infrastructure and not councillor paycheques, you’re more willing to pay them. There are virtuous circles here too. Safe and prosperous cities attract families who invest in their children. Those children are less likely to commit crimes, and the city remains safe and prosperous. High-trust environments reinforce truth-telling and punish betraying social trust. The best ones reinforce the desire to maintain a high-trust environment. What attitude will the resident of such a city have toward truth? They must think about it in relation to business and politics. They are more likely to consider truth and honesty a social responsibility and not simply a private preference.
Finally, let’s consider an entire culture: an ingroup bound by common history, values, ways of life, and social institutions. As in our other examples, a low-trust culture will reinforce conflict. In low-trust cultures, one has to expend a lot of energy and resources on not getting stabbed in the back. Because the culture is low-trust, those who try to demonstrate faith in others become victims of their own good natures. But of course people need each other to survive, so cultural institutions are geared toward decreasing uncertainty. The difference is between cooperating voluntarily and cooperating because you have a gun to your head. Because low-trust cultures must mitigate a huge amount of uncertainty, norms and institutions micromanage interactions and punish eccentrics. In such a culture, social harmony is highly valued. In fact, innovators who violate social norms aren’t likely to last long – both socially and sometimes physically. How many great philosophers, daring scientists, or brilliant inventors will such a culture produce? Now consider a high-trust culture. The marker of such a culture is that social harmony doesn’t need to be enforced by harsh restriction. Because one can assume that others are acting in good faith, the culture allows for more spontaneity. A certain amount of heterodoxy can be tolerated without jeopardizing the culture as a whole. When people can be trusting and truthful in social interaction, those who bring innovation are believed to have the well-being of the group in mind. It seems safe to say that such a culture will be more willing to change in the face of new knowledge. It possesses a certain antifragility. This seems to be a culture where appreciation for truth can thrive.
Having considered these examples, where do our own societies seem to be headed? Millennials are quickly losing trust in both institutions and our fellow human beings, especially in America and Europe. Conflict resulting from mass immigration is rising. Ever tightening speech codes seem to indicate decreasing social trust – remember how our low-trust culture needed to compensate with heavy discipline? Nationalist parties in Europe respond to alienation and distrust. Economic inequality is once again rising. When you view yourself as part of a class in conflict with the rest of society, you won’t want to invest in your enemies – with wealth if you’re rich, or with trust if you’re poor. If a culture which declines in trust also declines in its appreciation for truth, then we are on a dark road indeed. You can’t solve problems when pointing them out and suggesting solutions is immediately interpreted as tribal conflict. Will such a culture maintain the idealism which characterized scientific endeavours? What of the vocational attitude which the most admired philosophers have to their life’s work? Given that many modern philosophers have already become mired in endless deconstruction in the service of Social Progress, the answer seems clear. No doubt there will be many individuals and groups with whom devotion to truth survives. But the minds of our brahmins may well not be among them. And where the brahmins go, the culture and the country follow.
