As part of my Day Zero Project, I will be answering the 50 Questions That Free Your Mind. For each of these, I will blog an answer and then it will be linked here as well. Some of these will have longer responses, some will be extremely short. But by the end of the Day Zero Project, I will have answered all of these.
No. 27: Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
OK, these questions are becoming sillier by the number.
To counter this question, I ask this — does the truth always have to be challenged?
This question makes me think that you should always challenge something that is thought to be the truth. I don’t buy it. Not one bit. So this is saying that I will not always be told the truth and that I shouldn’t believe someone at face value.
Or, is that reading too much into it?
My answer, obviously, is yes. Of course it’s possible to know the truth without challenging it first. Why?
Trust.
In this world mixed with many different humans, we have to trust — at least some. I’m not saying always, but there has to be some sort of trust.
As a journalist, we were taught the opposite. We should always question the truth (or anything else). One line I remember from college is the old “If you mother says she loves you, get a second source.”
The idea of that is to say that you can’t trust but one person.
It’s a notion I always disagreed with. I understood the idea of it in regard to a newspaper or media or something like that, but not everybody in this world has an agenda and is trying to screw somebody over.
Sometimes the truth is there and put out there without needing a challenge.
In this world, there’s too much questioning of people and what they do and if they have any bad intentions. Personally, I think it’s time we start trusting a bit more. Maybe I’m off by saying that, but that’s part of humanity now.
Maybe that’s why this question needs to be asked, too.
I’ll stick to how I think things. Sometimes, the truth does need to be questioned. Other times, I’ll trust and believe. And I like it that way.
So, yes, it is possible to know the truth without challenging it first.
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