Truth and Objectivity: Where Does it Live?

There seems to be a consensus that all talk of civil dialogue must start with a commitment to truth.

But, what is truth? Are we able to objectively look at statements or facts and determine truth? Can we find media sources that we trust to give us truth?
Today, most of us have come to believe that “the media” media outlets have either a liberal bias or a conservative bias or a bias toward profit and sensationalism.

While it would be interesting to have a discussion about whether truth and a desire for objectivity exists in our media, I am more interested in whether it exists in us. The media will only give us truth and objectivity if we care about it. When I observe most of the dialogue among friends and family and I watch the political ads and the social media postings, I sometimes wonder how much we truly hold objectivity as a value.

What about you? Have you lost some of your objectivity during this elections season? To see where you may fit on the objectivity continuum, here is a quick test.

If you think every statistic that supports your candidate is accurate and every statistic that support the other side is misleading, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you believe that some of your friends who disagree with you do not care about the poor, or God, or babies, or the troops, or the elderly, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you cannot watch either Michelle Obama or Ann Romney and recognize that they are good people, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If, during the past three months, you have not listened to “the other side” and acknowledged that they may have a good point on a particular issue, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you observe disadvantaged people in your everyday life and only see examples of behavior that support your political views, you have lost some of your objectivity.

If you believe that either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney are either unintelligent, inarticulate, non Christians, socialist or un-American, you have lost some of your objectivity.

So, how did you do? If you are like me, you will see that there is much room to improve. I think that is okay. If you care about becoming more objective, that is a good thing. What scares me is that I believe many people may be saying, “Why do I need to worry about whether I am objective?”

Objectivity is simply the ability to discern truth. If objectivity does not matter then truth does not matter. If we have lost our belief that the truth matters, then much of our talk about love of country and our sense of moral superiority is just ego and self righteousness.

Watching political ads during the next six weeks is likely to convince us that both parties are betting millions of dollars on our unwillingness to care about truth and objectivity. It would be great, just this once, if we could prove them wrong. If that happens, and a hunger for truth returns, our country will win the election, regardless of which candidate wins.