Does “the” truth not exist anymore?

[EmpressSoleil]

Lately I feel I’m being bombarded in the media of people saying “your/my truth”. Just now reading a book in bed, someone’s relating something factual and someone else says “it’s good to hear your truth”. No, it was “the truth” not just one persons interpretation. It’s so irritating! Why is this so much a thing now? I mean I see it can be useful if 2 people are describing an interaction where they disagree. But surely actual truths still exist? Why this obsession with insisting it’s only the truth to the person relaying it? It feels like if someone says that to you they think you’re talking bollocks but acknowledging that you believe it. I don’t like it.

Well, you can blame postmodernism but that would indicate a very surface understanding of it, looking at you Jordan Peterson. Unfortunately, the political right has had a huge hand in this hollowing out of the very idea of truth, it has literally been both Trump and Putin’s project, not necessarily together, to throw enough doubt over the idea of truth being possible and accessible that people think that the truth is too complex and difficult and become depoliticised.

I actually think it is good to question to truth to an extent. I've studied and always enjoyed history. But much of history is recorded by the rich, the powerful and the victorious. With all of the bias that it brings. How can we honestly say that their account of the past is truthful? Who gets to decide what is the truth when two seemingly contradictory things are both true at the same time?

There may well be facts. But what is the truth surrounding those facts. It might be a fact a war happened, but what is the truth of how that war began?

Yes, definitely good to question truth and facts as that is a huge part of critical thinking. Whose truth is it? What are its origins? But not good to get to a point where people believe that truth is out of reach. Take fake news as an example. Originally, fake news referred to actual fake news articles that were largely produced in Russia and flooded the US and UK during Brexit and the 2016 presidential election. Then Trump jumped on the idea and started calling legitimate news ‘fake news’ if it didn’t flatter him. The term lost its meaning, but worse, he managed to undermine the idea of journalism and the free press in many minds.