Pop 89: Pierced by Truth

By Madonna Hamel

Dialogue. It’s a word without drama, shock value, vituperation, or aggression. No wonder we don’t use it. Given the potty-mouthed climate we live in, a word like dialogue just doesn’t appeal. It can’t hold the attention of so many of us tuned to scandal, ridicule, and smack-talk.

Observers of culture put a great deal of blame on social media. Today everybody can have a “platform” (once called a “soapbox”) if they so choose. And we can choose to listen to what they have to say. But it’s important to remember—no one is editing or vetting them. We can’t assume that what we hear is the truth.

Here is where someone usually says: “Oh, what is truth, anyway? You have yours, I have mine. What we need to do is stay out of each other’s way and let each other live out their respective truths; then we’d have a better society.” But, as the brilliant Maria Ressa says, “that’s not a society, that’s an insane asylum.”

In the early days of newspapers, journalists were expected to be “keepers of the truth.” They were trained in fact-gathering and fact-checking. They’d interview a variety of sources, then write their stories, to be edited by their bosses and told what changes to make. They had time to do all this because they had one deadline a day. This routine is still the journalistic standard, though I’m not certain it gets practiced with regularity in a world where online “news” is hurled at us 24/7.

Today we complain about the “media” being “the problem.” And, indeed, the “news” we used to watch on TV is gone. Gone are the days of Lloyd Robertson and Walter Cronkite just giving us the facts and letting us decide how to think about it. Now, we have “news shows” hosted by a variety of “news personalities” with their scripts full of opinion and commentary on issues, thus blurring the lines between entertainment and news. Add the slick trickery of AI, with its ability to imitate voices and faces, and we become even more at the mercy of “the media” when it comes to discerning truth.

Then there’s social “media,” where anybody can post anything, anytime, after any number of drinks or arguments with anyone who doesn’t see things their way. They have no pesky editors or fact-checkers to hold them accountable.

Of course, all of the above is moot if we aren’t WILLING to: search for the truth, practise discernment, ask questions to form informed opinions, reward goodwill, civility, gentle humour, and curiosity about the world beyond our fortified camps and gated communities.

But, was there ever a time when we were willing? When we behaved with integrity and nobly when addressing each other under pressure and in the public sphere? When we had good reason to extract revenge, but listened instead to our better angels? Yes.

Upon his release in 1990, Nelson Mandela did not call for vengeance but chose the path of dialogue and reconciliation. Mahatma Gandhi used transformative language to appeal to people’s empathy through logical explanation. And the violent Libyan dictator Charles Taylor was toppled thanks to a nonviolent movement led by Leymah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. None of them stooped to inflammatory click-bait language to achieve their aims. They used, as Pope Leo exhorts us to use: “unarmed and disarming language.”

We could live in a climate of peaceful dialogue if we were willing. So why aren’t we? For one thing—the “me” decade of the ’80s espoused self-expression as an essential form of liberation. “Hey, I just tell it like it is,” in-your-face style verbiage is counter to diplomatic language, which requires being considerate of others.

Here’s a list of character traits a diplomatic person possesses: “The ability to handle a situation in a sensitive and tactful manner, while still achieving a desired outcome; skill at communicating effectively, understanding different perspectives, and finding common ground in order to resolve conflicts; preference for communication, collaboration, and harmony; an attitude of patience, respectfulness, and tactfulness.”

I can hear the bullies and braggarts now, dismissing these highly evolved character traits as “unmanly,” “wimpy,” and worse. Sadly, the bravery, discipline, and nuanced critical thinking—not to mention spiritual rigour, conscious intention, and calm abiding—required to be men and women of goodwill asks too much of a culture bent on instant fame and fast fortune.

Writer Kara Bettis Carvalho warns about the use of hyperbole and dismissive language. “It’s risky,” she writes, “whatever the speaker’s cultural alignment. It might draw attention, but it also raises blood pressure with mixed results.”

And Damon Linker, at The Week, disagrees with those who say: sometimes you have to be rude to be heard. Insulting someone you are not aligned with by calling them a name that refers to “specific female body parts” does not enhance your cause; it just disparages a whole group of humanity.

“The more we shout, the less we hear,” he writes. “The more we exaggerate, the less we believe. And the more we hype the truth as we perceive it, the less likely we are to think anyone else has anything valuable to say.”

Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, speaking on the situation in Gaza, warns us that “business-as-usual language denying the humanity of each murdered being with terms like ‘collateral damage’ creates a climate of globalized indifference.”

If we took a breath, reflected, contemplated, and sought clarity on issues, but most of all, if we were willing to listen to each other’s story, we would not need harshness or exaggeration.

Clarity, writes Linker, “means command of the facts, specificity, and the argument-through-questions method used by the likes of Jesus and Socrates. If we know the truth, we can hold it out bare and trust that it will pierce the hardest of hearts.”

Are we courageous enough to have our indifferent hearts pierced by truth?