by Mary W. Matthews

Created on: January 26, 2009

Do we really want to hear the truth? Well, that depends on just what is meant by "the truth."

You can use "the truth" to convey a lie with, usually by telling only part of the truth. For example, you tell people you saw someone you don't like run towards an innocent old lady screaming and yelling and knock her to the ground, but you don't bother to mention that the old lady was on fire at the time and your "frienemy" saved her life by smothering the fire. Is that a "truth" you would want to hear if YOU were the hero?

You can also use "the truth" to lie with statistics. For example, you're shopping for a new house. (Bravely!) You're in a nice neighborhood, and the real estate agent mentions that the average income on a particular street is more than $500,000 dollars. Wow, that sounds pretty good, you think. A truth the real estate agent does NOT mention is that the four big executives who earn an average of two million dollars a year each live at one end of the street, and 14 families with average incomes of $50,000 live at the other end. And it's a long street at the rich people's end.

The oil and gas industry is currently running a series of commercials during the evening news. A beautiful and authoritative spokeswoman tells us about all the wonderful things that the oil and gas industry is doing to make life better for you and me. One ad claims that the U.S. has enough oil reserves to fuel 60 million cars and 160 million homes for 60 years. Is it "the truth"? Maybe it's close enough to being true to satisfy the FCC, but what about other truths, like environmental damage, pollution, corporate corruption, or having most of the money you spend at the gas pump going to foreign nations that support terrorism? When oil companies and politicians pretend that all of America's problems can be solved by allowing the oil companies to destroy Florida's tourism industry, they may be telling you "the truth," but they're not telling you the Truth. That the oil and gas industry made at least a TRillion dollars in profits in 2008 is a truth the oil and gas companies don't want you to know.

There's another sort of truth that no one wants to hear, and that's the "truth" that is told to hurt someone's feelings. For example, do you really want the person you love best in all the world to say to you any truths like, "You're not as attractive as you were when I first met you. I sometimes think about other people when we're being intimate. I sometimes wish I'd married my childhood sweetheart.

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