Arguing About Truth

This world we're living in isn't black and white...but we'd like to make it that way. 

We want there to be a good and a bad, a right and a wrong, a sacred and a profane, a holy and an evil, a friend and an enemy. We want there to be one thing we can all agree on and, in doing so, something we all agree on on the other side of it, too. 

Yet, it seems that no matter what happens in the world, we always find a way to pick a fight about it. We always find a way to uncover some layer of the onion that hasn't made enough folks cry yet, then pick and pick and pick at it until we've missed the forest for the trees and have started arguing about the smallest little things...ignoring the big things that we agree on. 

For example, a local woman was murdered by her abusive husband. And on the surface, we have tremendous agreement about this - he was wrong. He should be held accountable. This is a tragedy. How could something like this happen? 

But it didn't take long for the arguments to start coming out. There are those who think he should be fed through a wood chipper right away; others don't believe in capital punishment; still others want him to receive counseling. There were arguments come out about domestic violence - she should have left sooner; she did everything right; the court system failed her; law enforcement should have done better; it's her own fault for staying as long as she did. 

And all of a sudden, an entire community who agrees on the most fundamental truth about this story is left arguing about all the little nuances of it and forgetting that at our very core, we agree with each other. 

You walk away from a comment section like this shaking your head and wondering how there are so many idiots in the world who "just don't get it." Whatever "it" is for you. 

What is actually happening is that we've lost our ability to live in tension. We've lost our ability to have different perspectives and priorities and truths out there. 

We say that we are the most "tolerant" generation for truth. Hey - what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me and who am I to judge?

But the real truth of the matter is that this has only convinced all of us that there is only actually one truth - ours - and that anyone who doesn't agree with our truth is wrong. If our truth, our version of truth, our understanding and perspective and interpretation is the only one that matters to our lives, then it is the only one that matters. We have become completely intolerant in our tolerance because as much as we are told that all things are valid, we are also told that our thing is the only thing valid for us and any disagreement with us is disrespect. 

So here we are, arguing about what is most true or best true or perfectly true about a man with a history of domestic abuse who shot and killed the mother of his children when the truth is that no one thinks this is okay. 

It's amazing, right? Here we all are on the same side of history, still disagreeing with each other because it's what we've been taught to do - argue. 

But what if we didn't?