The life and times of Jeffry Epstein were the subject of yesterday’s post on this blog. Mention was made of his suicide, might he have been murdered.
The writer of this blog was in conversation yesterday with a number of people and the Epstein saga came up for mention. Someone in the group assured us all that Epstein was alive; that he had been taken out of his prison in a wheelchair. She was convinced of what she said and said it with great authority She told us it was her son who knew all about it. Another person said they knew he had been murdered.
Both people were adamant and convinced they knew the truth.
But of course they don’t know; how could they?
Last evening associate professor at the Loyola Institute in Trinity College, Fáinche Ryan gave a lecture titled Truth Matters: Living Truthfully in Challenging Times.
She spoke about Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of truth and how speaking the truth we both enhance ourselves and the person to whom we speak. And that God is truth. The importance of speaking truth in order to create trust in community.
Ms Ryan referred to the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the German authorities some short few days before the end of the war.
Bonhoeffer asks is it ok to tell a lie to protect someone from being harmed by evil. It sounds simple, of course it is. But she want on to point out that the philosopher Immanuel Kant would not agree with Bonhoeffer.
She concluded her lecture talking about the importance of words.
It’s interesting how right now Peter Mandelson is being called a liar in the public square. It must be close to 30 years since he was christened the first spin doctor; he was also known as the Prince of Darkness.
A spin doctor is someone who is economical with the truth. Is a spine doctor a liar. These days we are slow to call someone a liar, easier to say they are challenged by the truth or economical with it.
Cardinal Desmond Connell use the expression ‘a mental reservation’. Is that another term for spinning the truth? Who knows.
In these days of such unrest and confusion it seems speaking the truth, attempting to discover the truth is a must for all of us.
Social media can throw material at us that has no truth whatsoever, it can rubbish years of real scholarship and so many of us can fall for it.
What can we do?
No comments:
Post a Comment