As Simple As Telling The Truth

April 11 2020

You'd think it would be as simple

as telling the truth,

that if given the truth, you would understand.

Why she did what she did

why she failed to act.

As if truth were singular.

As if facts are enough.

As if circumstance

and random chance

and the difficult past of unknowable lives

didn't also factor in.

They say that truth

no longer matters.

When we hear what we want to hear

or try to drown it out.

By clapping our hands to our ears

and humming long and loud.

Or in incoherent shouts,

veins distended

faces reddening

spittle flecking our mouths.

In an age

when propaganda corrupts,

bad actors

take advantage of trust,

and fantasies

of conspiracy

can sound as seductive as truth,

running rampant

over rational thought.

Unlike viruses,

a vaccine will not stop

a pandemic of lies.

Understanding takes time

and a generous heart.

Because cold hard facts

can never be the whole truth.

They need to be simmered

in a warm broth

of empathy

active listening

a healthy pinch of self-doubt.

Walk a mile

in another's shoes

and the truth will eventually out.

I was watching the 1982 movie Sophie's Choice, and when Zosia is about to finally confess to Stingo the truth about her experience during the war, she says something like this (to paraphrase): I know what you're thinking. That if I would only tell you the truth, then you'll understand. But of course, says it not only in different words but in Meryl Streep's delicate and slightly girlish Polish accent, a world-weary voice that makes her sound exotic, and everything she says sound naive and wise and brittle at the same time.

This line stuck with me: that truth does not automatically lead to understanding. And also the implied questions about the nature of truth: its singularity; its immutability.

I've written before about that slippery definite article. As in “the people”: that the moment you hear this, you know it's the voice of a shameless demagogue who presumes to speak for the common man, but really couldn't care less. And as in “the truth”: as if there is one absolute immutable truth, when in reality there are many truths, depending on who you are and where you stand. Which brings to mind another celebrated movie, Rashomon, where various versions of the same event are revisited, letting us see how contradictory, self-serving, and subjective “truth” can be. Who is to say which version is the most legitimate? Or prove that they aren't all equally valid?

So in this poem, there is no single truth. And understanding requires not just a collection of facts, but an intentional act of empathy. At the same time, there needs to be common ground and a shared reality. And while there may not be one objectively fixed truth, there can't just be any truth:  there need to be uncontested facts; and while you are free to have your own opinion, you can't have your own truth, made up for the sake of either convenience or ideology.

This happens – the challenge of communication, the barrier to understanding – between people, in intimate relationships. But it also happens in public. Because we live in an era when truth is under attack; when we find comfort in closed media ecosystems and echo chambers, hearing only what we want to hear; when science is too often scorned; and when ignorance, superstition, and tribalism threaten to prevail. Truth-finding takes not only measured skepticism and considered thought; it also takes humility and active listening.

This poem probably sounds too preachy and pious for my comfort. Was the “walking in another's shoes” too aphoristic? Is the rest too cliched? Does it assume a kind of pompous and self-satisfied moral high ground, making cheap declarations of the obvious? Probably. But I'm keeping it. Because it says a lot about Trump's America ...but without being partisan or strident or personal. Because, even though there is only a single brief reference to pandemic, it's firmly anchored in its time. And because I like it stylistically, both for its prosody and relative simplicity. Sometimes it's both necessary and gratifying to get my teeth into something meaty: not just cute little writing exercises about vintage clothes and portable space heaters!

P.S. One frustrating part of that movie was that they never did explain the origin of the unusual nickname. Since it was based on the book by William Styron, I wonder if “Stingo” might have belonged to his own childhood. Or perhaps the overlap between Styron and Stingo was just his way of confessing the book's autobiographical overtones.