Recently I was invited in worship sharing to visit the topic of Integrity. Most of my Quaker life this has seemed very straightforward Quaker topic. I have felt quite clear about the importance of telling the truth and found it pretty easy to tell the truth. I have listened to the Quaker imperative to tell truth to power and even found that fairly easy to do.
However I saw in this round of queries that living in a country that has been plunged into a crisis about truth by 4 years plus after shade of a President who has told a record number of lies and who responds to being caught in a lie by telling another one, has worn on all of us. Between him and the Fox news propaganda machine ideas like "alternative facts" that at first seemed like a bad joke to me have become sadly quite common place situations in our polarized country. We are not all looking at the same facts or even the same sources of information. In a country that has never really achieved scientific literacy we seem unclear about how you test something for truth.
I also recently listened to a podcast that talked about confirmation bias and how when something questions our position we dig in tougher on it - so that means right now a very polarized country. Even as certain very damning facts come out about the former Presidents illegal behavior I despair that it will not cause reevaluation of his behavior but dig some folks in even deeper. I despair that if a fact cannot uproot a lie, how will wed uproot the conspiracy lies and mythologies that have a solid hold on 1/3 of our country?
But I also see that someone I have respected has put forth the idea that we do not own oppressive systems the truth - especially if they will only use it to further the oppression. I think of how in Nazi countries Jews were required to register. Most obeyed because they were being truthful. But the ones who did not tell the truth to the authorities were the ones mostly that survived. What is the truth in the hands of those who do not serve the truth?
I also have reviewed with much sadness the numerous times I have told groups of people/institutions truths that I knew they were not happy to hear, but that I believed it would serve the group to know or improve itself - only to see that this was received with anger, disregard or actual persecution. I am realizing this is another one of my "internalized Quakerism" traits that outside of Quakerism is not expected or well received. I think it still makes sense to testify to the Truth - to make public testimony to the truth of the Arms race, Climate Change, sexism and racism. And I am rock solid clear that to tell an untruth when it would cause wrong things to happen is unacceptable. To tell a lie to cover my own bad choice or make me look good is also not ok. But I am questioning whether it makes sense to tell people who don't want to hear it that the way we run our organization is not effective, or has unintended consequences or wastes money, etc. etc. if that serves any question. Does it make sense to give "true feedback" when it is unwanted feedback?
