This is part of an ongoing series called “50 Things I’m Teaching My Kids”: values and lessons I’m imparting to my children because they’re not going to get it anywhere else.
It is often said that we live in a post-truth world where absolute truth does not exist and that facts don’t matter. Saying that everything is relative—and that there is no absolute truth—is an easy way out. That way anyone can defend any argument without backing it up with reality.
Someone with the relativistic worldview can win any argument by saying “it’s my truth, that’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you.” Take any controversial topic that is out there today. Relativism makes winners out of all who venture an opinion.
I don’t buy any of this “post-truth” garbage for a microsecond. There are clearly absolute truths in the world and in our shared human experience. There are absolute truths in every sphere of the human experience, including the moral, physical, emotional, spiritual, political, and scientific.
And yes, especially mathematical. 2+2=4 is absolute truth. Obviously. And yet there are those who would argue that mathematics is a relative social construct. Seriously, this is a thing.
To teach that truth is only relative is a path to disaster for an impressionable child, and catastrophe for humanity as a whole.
The world is governed by absolute truths. Recognition of this basic fact is critical to properly navigate life.
The problems with “my truth”
“My truth” is often invoked by those trying to make their feelings factual.
When someone tells “my truth”, then the demand is that others accept what they say is an authoritative viewpoint.
There are many problems with the acceptance of a relative, personal truth.
When everyone’s personal viewpoint is accepted as correct, then conflicts of “my truths” are inevitable. These conflicts are most serious when no one can agree on who has what rights and responsibilities. If one person claims the right to one thing, and another person says that infringes on his own rights—and both must be correct!—then the matter is deadlocked. Expand this to 7 billion people and deadlock is manifest.
Acceptance of relativistic truth become catastrophic when “my truth” becomes the “government’s truth.” The only way to break a deadlock where everyone is right is with violent force. The State controls the greatest amount of force. Acceptance of relativistic truths at a societal level necessitates State-sanctioned violence in order to keep everyone in their lane. Might makes right.
Once the basic tenet of relativistic truth is accepted by a populace, a government can use that to bend everyone to its will. There is a direct line from individual moral relativism to government tyranny.
In George Orwell’s must-read book, 1984, the Ministry of Truth is constantly re-writing basic facts in order to bend the citizenry to the Party’s iron-fisted rule. Winston, the protagonist, is forced to accept obviously false dogma as fact, such as the statement “2+2=5”. Why would an authoritarian government want its people to believe such nonsense? It is because if the Party can make you believe that 2+2=5, then you are malleable to all other false dogma that is far more important for the operation of the State.
Manipulation of relative truth, in the hands of the powerful, demoralizes everyone. It’s happening today when activists demand a historical figure be scrubbed from textbooks, or an insane idea is forced upon a bewildered public by screaming protesters.
In today’s world, are the powerful trying to get everyone to believe things as ridiculous as 2+2=5? Absolutely. I bet you know exactly what some of these things are.
In such a world where the State controls basic facts (even mathematics!) the State can control everything. In such a world, the individual is lost and human flourishing withers.
Absolute, objective truth is rooted in reality
You always need to see how the world is, rather than how you would like it to be.
The world is based on absolute, objective truths.
There is a blazingly obvious argument exposing the fallacy of the relative truth dogma. If you were to say, “There is no absolute truth”, then the statement is inherently contradictory. Obviously. If you were to say the converse, “There is absolute truth”, then this is a consistent statement.
A belief in absolute truth guides the individual towards absolute truth. When motivated by absolute truth, an individual acts in a way that aligns with how the world actually works, rather than how he wants it to work.
Take Joe. Joe is married with two kids. Say one day he says that “his truth” tells him that it is ok to cheat on his spouse and ignore his children because he read a self-help book that encourages Joe to pursue his personal happiness. Joe equates happiness with pleasure, so he shacks up with the girl he met at yoga and leaves his family. Years later, long after his now ex-girlfriend and his family have forgotten about him, Joe sits alone in his shabby apartment, drowning in debt, drink, and despair.
Joe did not align himself with the absolute truth that a man needs his family. Also, there is the truth that happiness does not equal pleasure. Joe is also ignoring the truth that meaning and purpose fulfills a man, and that he should read my damn blog article on the subject.
Absolute truth guides the individual along a forthright path. If you clump millions of individuals together, absolute truth guides that mass together in a way that is productive and in congruence with reality.
I admire the people of the United States of America because the vast majority fervently believe that if you work hard in the right way, you can elevate your situation in life. This is an absolute truth: YOU are responsible for improving your own situation, no matter where you started from.
Can you imagine if hundreds of millions of people in a nation believed in this absolute truth? How strong would that country be? Maybe the strongest ever in the history of the world.
2+2=4. Always has and always will be.
Differences between some things may be neutral, but this doesn’t mean that these are relative truths.
Just because truths are absolute, it doesn’t mean that some differences in life aren’t neutral.
And just because differences between some things are neutral, doesn’t mean that this is a proof of the existence of relative truth.
Take the moral sphere. There are many decisions that are close to morally neutral because the positive and negative impacts of a decision on the decision maker and those around him are almost equally balanced.
Johnny likes chocolate over vanilla ice cream. Ming likes her vanilla over chocolate. Their preferences are their own.
Both ice creams are mostly equally good and bad for Johnny and Ming. Both taste good to the taster. Chocolate and vanilla are about equally toxic to the liver. Perhaps there are some minor moral distinctions, such as a cacao farmer in Peru may benefit from more eaters of chocolate ice cream, and that vanilla eaters improve the life of a vanilla bean farmer in Mexico. But for the most part the quality of ice cream flavour is in the taste bud of the taster.
Such examples are plentiful in this world; however, it is very important not to extend relativistic notions to these aspects of life. The distinction here is that some choices between different things are neutral—this does not mean that this is proof of relativism!
Absolute, objective truths interact with reality and are congruent with reality. Absolute, objective truths do not contradict each other.
Many truths are occluded to human vision, but we need to still try to uncover them
Human beings are hugely fallible. There is no way that any one person can uncover all of the truths that are in the world.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try!
Every single human being must strive to discover the truth of things.
Once the truth is discovered, every human must have the courage to speak the truth, no matter whether it is a popular or unpopular stance.
There is a very serious problem when a person gives up the fight to discover the truth of a matter. That person becomes demoralized. Sapped of hope for something better. Accepting a lie, even a small lie, eats at the human soul. And accepting little lies paves the path for accepting bigger lies.
Practical reasons to teach kids about objective truths
Parents try to get their kids to always tell the truth. This is impossible if the adults in the room only believe in relativistic truths.
At the very least, we really want to act like there is absolute truth. We certainly would want to teach our children that there are absolute truths.
What happens if we teach kids that there is only relative truth?
Teaching kids that “how you feel is what is real” is a recipe for a spoiled child. If you are a parent, or have observed a child for an entire day, then you know this to be fact. A child (or an immature adult) that is convinced his emotion is a compass that should guide every action will seriously crash and burn in life.
Telling children that “whatever you think up is your own truth” is a path to a meaningless and unproductive life. If a college student believes that she should earn more money the more she studies a topic that no one cares about (i.e. pursuing “her truth”), this will lead to inevitable disappointment.
Now, what happens if we teach kids that there are absolute truths in the world?
Our kids will interact with reality in congruence with reality. Our children won’t tell themselves lies. They will strive to learn what is actually true in the world. They will be able to build a strong foundation in their lives in all realms of importance—personal, physical, spiritual, familial, and moral.
How do you teach the truth to kids?
A good way to start is to teach kids that the world is in fact governed by absolute truths. This is Number One.
To expand on this is outside the scope of this article. I intend to further explore how to tell if something is the truth in later entries in this project of “50 Things I’m Teaching My Kids”.
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Remember, saying that there is only relative truth is like saying that everyone is correct about everything.
Reject this idea out of hand, for you and your children.
Belief in absolute, objective truth is the foundation to forthrightly interacting with the world and finding a path to a good life.
-Anthony Kim
Past articles in this series:
- Thing #1 I’m Teaching My Kids: Life isn’t about balance. Life is about feeding all the wolves you need to feed Article Podcast
- Thing #2 I’m Teaching My Kids: Meaning and Purpose Sustains You, Not “Happiness” Article Podcast
- My New Project: 50 Things I’m Teaching My Kids Article Podcast