AMERICAN POLITICS

Facts and Truth. Are There More than One?

How do we deal with facts, truth, and trust?

This is a story about upstream thinking and acknowledging that we all have our perceptions.

Earlier today, Dr Mehmet Yildiz tagged me in one of his stories on LinkedIn. It was enlightening for me. He talked about truth vs facts. About social media and high profile people getting involved in debates.

We are completely different, Mehmet and I. He is male, I am female. He is Australian, I am European. He is fond of fitness, I keep fit gardening.

And still, Mehmet and I agree on the most important value in life. Trust.

In this story, I want to take you on a little journey through facts and truth. Give my perspective. Only by gaining the perspective of others will we get closer to the real truth. Of course, I invite you to give your view in the comments.

The real truth is never another person’s truth. It’s yours. Felt in your own underbelly. Join me on the journey.

American Politics

This is the story Mehmet shared with us all.

Dwayne Johnson endorses Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and they talk about truth. About facts. And about trust.

Personally, I don’t really know Dwayne Johnson. But my partner Mike is a big fan of the Fast and the Furious. So yeah, the bell has rung…

And it got me thinking about truth and fact. And trust.

Facts and Truth, a Sliding Scale

My opinion is this. Truth can be a sliding scale if we do not recognize that another person has a different perspective. Who am I to say what is the truth for another person?

Facts also present a sliding scale. I explain it often with the metaphor of a river. We can look downstream for facts or we can look upstream. And the facts and solutions provided found will be completely different. And both true. We just have to realize the difference.

Let me give you an example.

I work a lot in the field of farming. And as you might know, my country The Netherlands is mighty famous for our technological solutions in the farming field. Still, we float further away from truth than ever.

The farming principles in my country are the same as the ones in America and Australia. We go for big tractors, we go for monoculture and we try to make it all more sustainable by inventing the next best technology. A biological pest-control method. A new sensor to measure CO2 in the soil. Food grown with blue and red LED-lights on rock wool instead of healthy soil.

I call these downstream solutions.

At the moment, we all live in a downstream situation with lots of problems and all we do is look further downstream. We apply bandaids. And create many more problems in the process.

Our businesses do not take responsibility for these problems, they make their business cases without taking responsibility for waste, pollution, and social factors. So in the end, society has to solve it all. And it comes with a price.

What we could also be doing is look in the mirror and see our real problems and how they are connected. We could go upstream to the source of the problem to find real solutions. But we need a different mindset for that.

For instance, an upstream solution would be to stop smothering the soil with heavy tractors. And design different methods for our food supply chain. With community-supported agriculture (CSA) perhaps? Buy directly from the farmer? Local solutions connected to specific ecosystems and cultures.

We can implement solutions that enhance biodiversity. Restore water and nitrogen cycles. Honor the work that our sun and the soil are doing to create our healthy food and create a healthy planet.

An upstream solution is to create healthy, living soil and produce food that gives life. And learn to share with all life.

So, what about facts?

Downstream and upstream solutions are both based on facts. Measurable, scientific facts. But some of these facts create more problems (downstream) and other facts help us build a better future (upstream solutions) and sometimes downstream solutions are temporarily necessary during the big transition time that we’re in. So we have to make sure they are flexible.

It’s a matter of recognizing what’s what.

Different Perspectives

So, what is truth? Truth is universal. It is the way our universe rules the world. And the way we humans take up our wise space within the universe.

We live on a planet with natural laws and the balance is only found when we allow as much diversity as possible. And that’s where it gets difficult. We all look at the same truth. But we look at it from different angles. So it is as if we are seeing different truths.

Have you heard of the blind men and the elephant?

The blind men cannot see the complete elephant. So they all touch a little piece of the elephant and describe the creature completely differently. He is narrow, long, and tube-like (trunk). No, he has a hard shell (tooth). No, he is big and has a wrinkled surface (body). Who’s right?

Does it ring a bell? Do you see politics in this metaphor?

The Sliding Scale of Framing

Politics are taking advantage of the elephant-principle. All politicians do it. Trump does it. Biden does it. All people do it who like to push their own agendas.

They use framing to make others agree with them.

So, while Biden and Harris are talking about telling the truth, I really hope they realize that truth looks different for all people. I hope they will have the humility to listen to all kinds of different people. To then weigh the pros and cons and explain clearly, openly why they came to a certain decision.

And explain again clearly and openly when they see mistakes in their own decisions and dare to change course.

Maybe they can adopt the river-metaphor and explain downstream and upstream solutions. This river-metaphor is applicable to all topics. Just try it sometime and let me know how it worked for your issues.

Decisions will never be good in the eyes of all people. Everybody walks on a different stretch of the road towards the future. And depending on their very personal status quo they will weigh a decision. And complain. Or agree.

Decision-making is not about pleasing. But it’s also not like: “I’m the only one seeing the truth and you have to see it the way I see it.”

Even the wisest men and women only see part of the truth. We are all just human. You, me, and the next person.

Please, let’s be aware of that.

But there’s hope. We can trust each other.

We’re all doing our best to live a life worth living. We all love our children and grandchildren. We are all on a journey and see the road a bit clearer every step of the way. The closer to the universal truth we come, the clearer it’ll get. And only with trust can we stick together and make the journey bearable.

If we would build our laws and take our actions based upon that trust, we would definitely get a different society. Read Humankind. A book by Rutger Bregman. This historian proves by researching the past that most people are really trustworthy. We just haven’t built our societies with this truth in mind (yet).

Our politicians want full control. Maybe that’s just not the way to go. Maybe we can do it differently. With inclusivity. Diversity. Wisdom. And then go with the flow. Start from our status quo and work upstream. Towards the universal truth. I really hope Biden and Harris will succeed in accomplishing that.

Thank you, Mehmet for giving me the spark that kindled this fire in me. And I would really like to get some perspectives on this matter. Perhaps from George J. Ziogas Michele Thill Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D. Sinem Günel Yael Wolfe John Gorman Aurora Eliam, CMP Paul Myers MBA umair haque Dr Michael Heng Jessica Wildfire Rebecca Stevens A. 🦋 Lucien Lecarme Keno Ogbo.

And others who I didn’t mention here. Please feel invited to respond and add your wisdom to this very important matter of facts, truth, and trust. A wave cannot build its power without individual drops. So please add your voice. And let’s become a wave.

If you want to connect, you can find me somewhere harvesting organic potatoes or via LinkedIn.

These are the potatoes I harvested yesterday at People’s Farm. They are thick and with firm skin. It can be done. Organically. Regeneratively. Let’s walk our talk.

My social media links: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, ManyStories, my website.

© Désirée Driesenaar