The Face of Truth

“I Am Face” by Kyle Wutke

Several weeks ago the Lake Michigan shoreline near my home was covered in extremely thick fog. A gray curtain hung where the beaches and rocky shores near me ended. Not an inch of the huge lake could be seen. The inland sea is majestic in all manifestations so I should have stopped and gotten out of the car and just stolen a minute to take it all in but I had places to go and people to see. Therefore I hurried on. 

Obviously I knew that Lake Michigan was there in spite of my not seeing it. My fast moving capsule of steel, glass, rubber and plastic didn’t let me feel, smell or hear it as well. Truth demands that a glorious, multicolored lake exists near my home. I can say this because of “past research” verifying the lakeshore repeatedly even though on this particular day, I had no evidences on the matter.

Now comes a strange twist in this conversation. I did have the option to deny Lake Michigan’s existence based on that day’s not seeing, feeling or hearing it. I could have insisted, perhaps even convincing a few people, that based on current inputs, no Great Lake existed nearby. Even with tears, anger and name calling, I could have foisted falsehood as any person foolish enough to believe me would have quickly and wetly verified. Why would I have denied the truth though? I will make a point here that this is not a preposterous question but rather, an extremely important one. 

Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea famously asked, “What is truth?” while interrogating Jesus Christ in the biblical book of John. The question is a good one. My ancient Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, (Miriam-Webster 1985) struggles with multiple explanations and opinions for the word “Truth.” For our purposes here, I will accept definition 3a: “the property, (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.” So with that definition in hand, why would someone intentionally, willingly and capably insist on something other than “the truth” though that objecting person stands obviously in opposition of fact? “Preposterous” you say as I stand in the fog with the sounds of waves behind me, insisting that the lake doesn’t exist. Preposterous indeed but this happens continually in our culture. Examples are numerous. Here is a particularly controversial one.

Since the general press is proving most unhelpful on male dominance in female sports with activists getting ever more amorphous on what evidence of male/female sports differences actually is, I recommend going to the International Olympic Committee’s website on the matter. Olympics.com/ioc/human-rights/fairness-inclusion-nondiscrimination Here the IOC reports the following in the drop down: “Why should IFs (International Federations) apply the Framework (outlined earlier in the website,) to guide their response to trans athletes and/or athletes with sex variations?” To quote the site: “The apparent tension between the inclusion of trans athletes and/or athletes with sex variations and fairness in sport is increasingly attracting legal, human rights and scientific scrutiny. This includes legal proceedings at both national and international levels that have resulted in rule changes. In parallel, sports bodies at all levels and across many jurisdictions are increasingly being asked to provide all athletes, regardless of their gender identity and/or sex characteristics, with pathways to sports participation, including at the elite level. This has led to concern amongst some stakeholders that the female category in particular will not be able to accommodate a greater diversity of athletes without negative consequences for some cisgender women athletes.” I guess that I can live with this weak statement even though overwhelming public evidence verifies female sports detrition because of male participation. For example woman’s tennis dominating Serena Williams refusing to compete against a male athlete, Video Here and a Canadian weightlifter who doesn’t identify as transgender entering Canadian woman’s weight lifting as a woman in protest to a transgender athlete decimating the nation’s female weightlifting records: News Article. Many local and national sports news sources now have stories where back bench boys in a particular sport suddenly decide that they are women to go on to destroy all of their competition. This “mist blocking the lake” has significant ramifications in many areas of life and not just in sports. There is a deeper concern here.

If a person in our society can deny the very facts of their own body as has been established for the entirety of human existence and then demand that the rest of us concede to this, it shows horrible societal fragility as we go along with it. Again, my earlier Webster’s quote: truth is “the property, (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.” Yet “I am reality. I am the truth no matter what confirmed facts oppose my claim,” seems to be a growing thing. We have judges now for example, violating established law, judicial precedence and even common sense with impunity, basing decisions on simply their wanting a particular outcome and those decisions don’t just have to do with transgender issues. It results in horrible criminals walking free to strike again and innocents incarcerated because of judicial idiocy. The judges prove that God help the society where a person with notions of being a reality onto themselves can accrue power.

The United States is a nation of set down, established laws as agreed upon by “we the people.” No human system is perfect and this applies to us as well. Therefore we have ways to tweak laws, make new laws or repeal laws because of hopefully, the prevailing facts around us. If this system is working correctly, when one of us decides to not comply we must either change an offending law, leave to live somewhere else or we go to jail. To however allow “I am a law onto myself” to operate among us is like letting someone drive on the wrong side of the street simply because they conjured up an excuse to do so. It makes cool Hollywood scenes but in real life people are harmed. The problem with democracy is that it by definition, is self-government. However if that self-government emphasizes SELF to the detriment of others, we commonly call that tyranny. A government of and by the people often must walk a fine line with giving free expression to novel world views versus a majority view but must never allow a view, whether majority or not, to forcibly dominate those who disagree. To my above example, a guy relatively recently stood on a dais with his junk eminently sticking out in his sports garb as he got the first place metal. Meanwhile women half his size took second and third places. As I watched I thought of the century long efforts of women working for women’s sports going down the drain, just because he wanted it. The adulation of self does not only negatively affect the self-adulator. We all must suffer because of it in more ways than we can suspect.