One of the grand challenges these days is the notion that each of us has "our truth." That is, that each of us sees the world through our eyes, our life journey and therefore come to understand what is "true" to us may be different from what is "true" to someone else. You hear this in gatherings where some declare. "This is my truth!", or "Let her speak her truth." If those who speak this way are in fact referring to truth, they are spouting nonsense.
What they probably mean to say is "perspective" rather than "truth." Each of us have different perspectives on many things and our perspectives are indeed a result of our life experiences, upbringing and prejudices (yes, we all have our prejudices).
But make no mistake: truth exists.
This is particularly troubling today because we have politicians who openly lie and state—with bizarre conviction— that their lie is "the truth." Politicians, like anyone else, are welcome to offer their perspective on everything, as long as they recognize it is exactly that: their perception. .
This practice of lying, misrepresenting and obfuscating has become so commonplace in politics and business that those of us who want our beliefs reenforced swallow their malarkey whole. By doing this, we have been the enablers to these inveterate liars.
This has created a class of "leaders" I call Charlatan Leaders.*
Charlatan Leaders are avowed rumormongers and easily detected. Since the acquisition of attention and power at any cost is the driving motivator of a charlatan, lying, misrepresentation, and innuendo are their hallmarks. With the advent of social media, artificial intelligence (AI) and lax defamation laws in the U.S, charlatans make outrageous claims and accusations with impunity. Charlatans lace their diatribes with statements such as, “That’s what I heard” and “it could be,” actively planting the seeds of distrust to weaken unity and increase divisiveness. When the topic of truth surfaces, charlatans are quick to ask, “Whose truth?” as if observable facts were debatable.
How do we come to understand what is true and what is not? All of us have had people recount an event that they initially understood to be true and subsequently discovered that their rendition of that event was inaccurate or mistaken. This sort of inadvertent misunderstanding occurs as a natural consequence of human interaction.
Over the past few years there has been a steady deterioration in the notion that non-negotiable truth exists. Much of this is due to the widespread use of social media as a source for understanding what is happening in “the world.” Since vast numbers of people in the U.S. own cell phones, the view of that world anyone may acquire is often accessed through those devices.
As a result, there is a popular though misguided notion that established and vetted facts are arguable. Much of this questioning of facts emanates from Charlatan Leaders who are politically motivated to skew, ignore, or fundamentally alter the facts in their favor. When confronted with established and vetted facts, those who find them disagreeable may prickle and pose the classic charlatan question, “Yeah, but whose facts?” as though facts belong exclusively to one group or another.
Truth is observational fact supported by reliable and varied sources that are consistent with past events. Colossal and minute events continuously occur, even in the absence of humans, whether or not there are witnesses to their occurrence. To question whether a tree falling in the forest makes a noise if there is no one there to hear it is a pointless exercise. To suggest that the human witnesses to millions of trees falling over millennia—when every falling tree has made a crashing noise—provides exceedingly convincing evidence that a falling tree in the forest today makes a noise even though there is no human eyewitness. Absolutely no evidence exists that would suggest that trees (or any other life form lacking the capacity of on-command voluntary movement) could choose to fall silently. Therefore, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, it still made a noise. Since no countervailing evidence exists, no one is in a position to suggest otherwise. It is a fact that a falling tree makes a noise. Period. We must stop pretending that truth is some elusive perception which depends on whimsy, interpretation or wishful thinking.
As a school principal, I managed dozens of investigations to determine truth based on perceptions which were, almost always, not accurate. One example is when I parent called me, angry that a teacher had called their child “stupid.” Their child had told them this happened in class and the parent, without bothering to inquire if the teacher actually said this, assumed that their child was completely accurate in their rendition of the occurrence. I interviewed the student who was convinced the teacher had said, “You’re stupid!” The student left my office and I brought the teacher into my office, asking her what had occurred. The teacher was convinced she said, “Stop acting like you’re stupid.” After interviewing several other students who agreed with the teacher, I called the parent and child into my office. When I revealed my investigation’s results, the child thought a moment and acknowledged that the teacher had not actually called them stupid. I cautioned the teacher on using red-flag words like “stupid” since many people react emotionally when such words are used with them.
The conversation with the parent continued. I suggested, “You might reconsider believing 100% of what your child tells you.”
“Are you calling my child a liar?” the parent demanded, a response I anticipated.
“Absolutely not,” I replied. “I’m saying is your child is a 13 year-old who perceives the world through 13 year-old eyes, just like you and I did when we were 13. I’m just saying that perception is often not reality—it just feels like it is sometimes.”
We have all heard that “perception is reality.” This, too, is essentially inaccurate. Perception is what is perceived, which may or may not be accurate, particularly if we are distracted in any way while we perceive. Also, because perception often results from indirect observation, we are often tempted to see it as “our truth.” Perception is based on what we believe to be true, based on the observations of others which may or not be accurate and truthful. Perception is created by second-hand accounts. On occasion, perception can be truth, but often perception is acquired (or at least colored) through rumors, innuendo, gossip and any number of methods that are not the same as witnessing an occurrence.
This reasonable statement of fact—that perception is often not reality—was well-received by the formerly angry parent and, in fact, by almost everyone who genuinely stops to consider the issue.
All of us risk creating an alternative information ecosystem, a self-constructed news bubble which relies almost entirely on emotionally-charged perception, not fact. This reliance on perception without benefit of thorough examination to determine facts almost always results in negative consequences.
©️Copyright by David Samore. Excerpts in part or whole may not be used without the expressed permission of David Samore.
*Excerpted from True Leadership: The 10 Universal Laws , by David Samore, Ed.D., Fairfield Avenue Press (2024), Chapter 7, Reject Charlatans.
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