 The feeling of ‘truthiness’  The Layman Volume 39, Number 2, Posted May 8, 2006
Colbert, a tongue-in-cheek newsman who anchors The Colbert Report, describes his art: “Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.” That’s the essence of “truthiness,” an expression of emotion presented as fact. New York Times reporter Jayson Blair fell prey to “truthiness” when he plagiarized quotes, fabricated scenes, and cited imaginary sources for his readers. His fiction presented as fact spiced up the Gray Lady and won him page-one placements. When the deception came to light, Blair was fired, along with two editors. His work may have been “truthy,” but it was not true. CBS anchorman Dan Rather suffered similar embarrassment when he targeted President George W. Bush’s military record during Bush’s re-election campaign. Rather’s “documentation” proved fraudulent, consisting of memos that were typed on a word processor that had not been invented at the time that the memos were alleged to have been written. CBS initially defended itself by quoting Ms. Marian Carr Knox, the secretary who would have typed the memos: “I know that I didn’t type them,” she said. “However the information in those [memos that never existed] is correct.” Essence of ‘truthiness’ There you have it, the essence of “truthiness,” “the facts may be wrong, but they feel right to me.” “Truthiness” also bit Oprah Winfrey when she awarded a lucrative book club endorsement to James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces. During a Larry King Live television show, Frey’s “facts” were shown to be fiction. Winfrey called in to King’s show, defending the book because it “still resonates with me.” Her message: Frey’s words may not be true, but they stir my emotions. To her credit, Winfrey subsequently conducted her own research, discovered that Frey was a fraud, and required him to appear on her television show where he publicly admitted the deception. “Truthiness” has found a home among leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The key is to translate the language of fact into expressions of feeling. Asserting that a proposition is wrong is deemed downright un-Presbyterian. Better to say, “I’m not comfortable with that.” “Truthiness” hit a home run in a report by the denomination’s Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity (PUP) that will be a centerpiece at the 2006 General Assembly. The report excoriates “binary thinking,” rejecting Parliamentary procedure because it requires Presbyterians to choose between right and wrong, true and false, good and evil. That procedure produces winners and losers, says PUP, and the unhappy circumstance that someone – perish the thought – might feel left out. PUP’s fatal flaw is not its recommendation 5 – although we welcome any opportunity to vote against it – but the report’s assumption that truth can be both affirmed and denied simultaneously by reducing it to feeling. Recommendation 5 is merely the application of that “truthiness” premise which underlies the entire document. Feeling is what matters In essence, PUP is telling us that it does not matter what Scripture says. All that matters is how we feel about what it says, how we interpret what it says, and whether we believe that what it says is essential for us. Shifting its focus from truth to “truthiness,” PUP allows each Presbyterian to say what “is” is. Members of the task force have been showing up at presbytery meetings around the country, promoting imponderables like “polarity management exercises,” “giving honor to one another’s views,” and “envisioning hope born of conversation.” Soon this public relations campaign will run its course and PUP’s product must stand before the General Assembly. That assembly would do well to remember the words of our Lord: “Let your yes be yes and your no be no,” and “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” and “No one can serve two masters.” Not very “truthy” perhaps, but it’s true. A column by Parker T. Williamson, editor emeritus and senior correspondent of The Layman. |
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