The Lost Art of Discernment

So what is reality in this day of “reality” shows and conspiracy theories? Why is it that “a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” and more importantly, why are we so predisposed to believe lies? When did caring for the truth stop mattering to so many people? Secondly, whom do you really trust anymore…really? What people and or institutions did you used to place trust in but no longer do? Is trust for you relational or ideological, earned or freely given, societal or tribal? What do you do when trust and deception become partners and you can’t separate where one starts and the other begins? Back in the days when Walter Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America, journalism and journalists were respected not only as a source of the truth, but as an essential component to a free and democratic society. How did our compass for gauging the truth, hand in hand with a trusting spirit, devolve into the www.misinformation nightmare we have allowed ourselves to slavishly consult as to what our opinions should be today? When did we surrender our brain cells for ideological frontal lobotomies? Perhaps trust was the first casualty in the abandonment of truth. For those old enough to remember, how was your sense of trust and stability affected by the assassinations of the sixties or the Civil Rights Movement, or the Kent State massacre or the Pentagon Papers or the Watergate scandal? How well did your psyche survive the Vietnam war regardless of whether or not you supported it? Even our religious affiliation can be an invitation to lose trust as parents and church leaders inevitably fail to live up to what is professed or more realistically, to our perceptions of how they should act. Human failings often provide us with the reasons to lose trust at the expense of learning compassion and forgiveness. Traumatic experiences as a result of abuse by those we thought we could trust have long lasting affects where all bets are off regarding handing ones trust to anyone, any institution or any symbol of authority. Lastly, what role do both fearfulness and fear-mongering have in switching off the intellect and at the same time reenforcing tribal instinct and self preservation to create “truths” so as to believe the worst about other people? How has the inability to trust anyone outside of one’s tribe allowed for the manipulation of tribal fears, which don’t necessarily have to have any basis in reality? If all of these issues weren’t enough, how does one discern what is true when all manner of outrageous claims are made for products aimed at our insecurities regarding weight loss, sexual potency, body odor, beauty aids and a host of other conditions, all without a sliver of scientific data to back them up? Pseudo-science, built on ad campaigns dramatizing experts in white lab coats and testimonials by “real” people, also help to contribute to the confusion regarding topics ranging from the search for whiter teeth to the ultimate cures for arthritis and back pain. To make matters worse, there seems to be a five year cycle of “credible” studies promoting and then alternately dismissing the inherent value of a glass of wine a day, or butter or aspirin or vitamin C or vitamins at all or any dairy products, not to mention eggs. How many times have you parroted these “findings” to other people without doing one iota of research yourself to verify the authenticity of the study, a process akin to gossip? Who financed the study? What method of testing was used? Was there a peer review of the study? Why don’t news outlets do this research before they disseminate what could be completely false information? Information gathering is a critical part of discernment. I remember from my minor seminary days the term affected ignorance. This entails suspecting that my actions may be morally sinful, but I’m not absolutely certain and I deliberately choose not to research and inform myself because I may not like what I find. The individual is choosing to reinforce their purpose or “truth” by remaining ignorant. They would rather not shed any light at all on the subject. The function of affected ignorance is to buttress up ones rationalizations or in simpler terms, to cut oneself some slack and “get away with it”. This slack allows the individual to maintain a spurious foundation of justification and to hold on to a false belief system that insulates a malformed conscience. Wrong becomes right.