If "truth" means nothing more than "I emotionally believe it", than truth is meaningless. I thought truth actually had a dictionary definition along the lines of conforming to fact. I have given you facts, which I am sure were also at Powell's command, which show that what he said was false- no matter how emotionally he might have wanted to believe it at the time.
Good and bad- the qualities of being desirable or undesirable, are certainly relative, but the truth- if access to facts is available- is not relative. What one DOES with the truth, in terms of belief, is relative- but when you or I make a statement, referring to factual things, and we, in fact, deviate from fact, we are not truthful- no mater who we are, no matter what we believe in, and no matter how emotional we are. We might *believe* we are being truthful- but if the facts are there, and can be checked, we are mistaken in our belief, if we believe we are being truthful when it is clear we are not.
Opinion, of course, is different- but that wasn't what I was talking about. |
