What Is Truth?
When Jesus of Nazareth appears before Pilate in Jerusalem, Jesus tells Pilate that “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37) Pilate responds with one of the most famous questions in history, “What is truth?”
In post-modern America where people now talk about your truth and their truth instead of the truth, it is a question that needs some real attention. The conservative movement needs to do a better job of focusing on the question. Too many hucksters are twisting the truth to keep people riled up and enraged instead of providing answers.
In Georgia, Ahmaud Arbery is dead. Two men, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael, attempted to stop Mr. Arbery for supposedly breaking into a home. The men pulled guns, a struggle ensued, and Travis McMichael shot Arbery who died at the scene.
Sadly, the event happened in February and it took months before a video of the shooting surfaced online and media generated outrage provoked action at the state level. The local district attorney had a business relationship with the elder McMichael and some local politicians claim the police were instructed not to arrest the McMichaels. The state of Georgia is now launching not just an investigation into the killing, but into the local officials who tried to stop arrests.
As the outrage gained national traction that transcended races, ideologies, and parties, some started to suggest there was more there. Video surfaced of Arbery visiting a construction site. People suggested that was proof he had been a potential burglar as the McMichaels claimed. The owner of the construction site said nothing had been taken and it was not unusual for people to show up to look at the work. Another video surfaced purporting to show Arbery scoping out a house repeatedly as if planning to burglarize it. But multiple people subsequently stepped forward to say that was not him in the second video.
Why would any of that matter anyway? Some people are more interested in proving Arbery was no saint than they are interested in acknowledging his lack of sainthood did not give two men authority to kill him in the street. Some people are more interesting in finding excuses for the McMichaels than in acknowledging the truth. Ahmaud Arbery died because two men thought they could attempt, at gunpoint, to detain him without law enforcement for crimes they presumed but did not witness.
Disturbingly, many of the people seeking now to cast aspersions on Arbery are the same people who have spent months lying about COVID-19. Some of them claimed the virus originated in the United States. Others claimed the virus was nothing more than a flu. Still others claimed the science was all wrong or Bill Gates is engaged in a global conspiracy or any other manner of absurdity.
The malignant obfuscation to undermine healthcare experts and public policy in the United States for grift, attention, or internet celebrity has been revolting. While it is perfectly reasonable to question the need for policies like sheltering-in-place or the accuracy of models, the willful distortion of truth has picked up a dangerous amount of steam. The idea that a virus that has killed over 80,000 Americans in ten weeks while Americans are sheltering-in-place is just a bad flu is an obscene statement.
Unfortunately, too many of the same people seeking to pervert the truth of the Arbery situation and the virus situation are voices who pretend to be on the right. They have no real ideological ties to conservatism. They are just seeking to build audiences or revenue from conservative skepticism of government. They have been nursing grievances for their own gain. They have turned their back on truth like Pilate.
Conservatism has long had a healthy foundation in truth and the nature of man. Conservatives have never hoped to build a heaven on earth like progressives because we know we are all sinners and should want as few other sinners in charge of us as possible. But conservatives must want and seek truth to have trust in the public square. We have an obligation to it.
In watching the video of the shooting, it was clear that Ahmaud Arbery should not have been shot. He was clearly jogging and after heading around a truck parked in the road, he ended up dead. Even though he had recently trespassed in a house under construction to look inside (as many people like to do), this is hardly a major crime calling for a citizens arrest at gun point. The fact that no official brought charges for months is also a disgraceful event that should not have happened.
That being said, I don't believe it is proper to tie this event to other issues, even though Erick is correct in pointing out that the truth doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people. The modern political world is full of truth distortions from the persistently anti-Trump fake news to the conservatives who suggest keeping one's distance from people potentially infected with the deadly Corona virus will do nothing to prevent/slow its spread, as if Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are corrupt morons for suggesting such common sense measures. However, when discussing Ahmaud Arbery's case, the focus should be on the individuals responsible for his death and the failure to bring his killers to timely justice, if truth is the primary goal.
I was just pondering this today. The extremes i see on my Facebook feed make me tired. Thanks for your comments, I find them helpful.