The WholeTruth

Whenever I hear people talk about a "half truth" I wonder what they mean. To me it implies part of a statement is true, but part is also untrue, so you get the best of both worlds rolled into one. You can lie and get away with something as long as some modicum of what you say sounds plausible, or even just well-intended.

It sounds like what politicians do with every breath.

In moving toward my own personal and social integrity, I discovered something powerful about this thing called truth. Like a coin, truth has two distinct yet complementary sides. One side is truth - telling things correctly, and the other side is honesty - telling things completely. Don't be fooled. There is a huge difference between the two. That's' why the truth coin carries more value than any other currency. Truth is the external search for reality. Honesty is internal search for it.

That couplet is more than a clever use of language. It's the bedrock foundation of all human healthy communication and is also the source of most of our difficulties in society. It's relatively inexpensive to tell things correctly, but it's incredibly costly to tell things completely.

A homey illustration help us understand the difference. If I ask you if you left the restaurant server a tip, you can say yes or no. If you say yes, I assume all is well. But if you left only a penny and kept that to yourself, your truthfulness would be discredited by your lack of personal honesty.

Politicians do his all the time...virtually every time they speak. They use an opponent's comment out of context to paint the worst possible picture of their adversary, making them sounds awful when their position might have be quite appropriate. We saw a political advertisement last year where a man was pushing granny over the cliff in her wheel chair because he voted against a pork-filled bill. "If you don't agree with me, you are obstreperous, even hard-hearted or a hater. If you are pro-choice you hate babies and vise versa. If you support private gun ownership you are contributing to gun violence."  Such is the logic of politicians and other liars.

We hear someone trying to kill the second amendment because they want gun registrations for convicted felons. Or, someone hates clean water because they don't vote for a radical resolution that saves tadpoles but kills the farming industry of a state.

Winning politicians usuall can't be honest. It costs far too much. Those who try being ethical or logical never get out of the starting gate. Some office seekers sound truthful by saying they support clean energy, but the odds are high that they get big support from the clean energy industry.

While all of this is true, and honest, don't be too hard on our political elites, we are usually just as bad. We say things that are correct on the surface, but not complete in the details. Some statements of honesty have little consequences, like we left a tip when what we left was in fact more insulting than helpful. Only we and the truck stop server know the whole truth.

But when it comes to being honest, or complete with our lives, and the consequences too heavy to accept, we manage to wiggle out of the honesty part while desperately trying to keep some - or all - of the truthful part in tact. That's called manipulation, deflection and/or deceit. It happens when someone asks if you are having an affair and your answer is "I never had sexual relations with that woman".  That kind of answer ignores the question while attempting to present a form of truth that will get one off the hook. But it depends on skewing one's  definition of truth so others will be fooled, even though you know your ruse is sound up with dishonesty.  The cover-up is always done from fear of exposure with its consequent damages.

Jesus' simple teaching about how a person of character ought to answer questions carries significant moral weight. Let your answers be yes, or no. Anything else smacks of deceit. Or, you can't fudge the truth with a simple yes, or no.

It takes courage to make integrity-based statements, but by avoiding them you lose the positive and healing power of truth. That's why the court bailiff asks such a pointed, no escape clause type question, about your testimony: "Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" Yes means yes, and no means no. Fibbing under oath purgers one's integrity making them useless in discovering the whole truth and nothing but he truth. Speaking the whole truth and accepting the consequences is a costly and courageous act, and very few can sustain that lifestyle.

One of my literary heroes, Mark Twain, wrote his death-bed autobiography with the condition that it would not be published for one hundred years after his death. Why? He wanted to be completely honest with his thoughts because he knew that pure honesty is impossible as long as there was a chance of doing harm to himself or others.

So, a white lie, a little cover-up or a bit of deceit are the techniques we use to stay our social and personal executions. Truth is easily manipulated, unless complete honesty is included in the calculation.

This principle of honesty, as laudable as it is, is not a license to be unkind, cruel or malicious. If we live the Golden Rule and accept the concept that all we do ought to be balanced by love and human civility, we may avoid looking like, or worse acting like those political creatures we so detest, both in and out of the government.

Honesty is the best policy is a good furry little proverb as long as we understand
that it also has very sharp teeth. As Hawthorne said in The Scarlet Letter: "Every man is living two." Some of our favorite living adages are like the cute fluffy little squirrels that entertain us in our yards. They are so winsome! Unless you get too close. Honesty is the same way. It's easy to claim or enjoy from afar, but when it jumps on you lap look out!

Okay, chew on this for awhile, and like me, look in the mirror while you do. It's personal, not social.

Jack Getz
July 9, 2016