Season 4 Podcast 54 Self Reliance, Concept 3, Truth
I have selected ten concepts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance. Each concept expands the virtues and variations of Self-Reliance or warns of the vices of the ways we forfeit Self Reliance:
· Concept 1: Blind Obedience
· Concept 2: False Charity
· Concept 3: Truth
· Concept 4: Faith
· Concept 5: Non-Conformist
· Concept 6: To Thine Own Self Be True
· Concept 7: Self-Reliance
· Concept 8: Character
· Concept 9: God
· Concept 10: Solitude
In this Podcast, we shall discuss Concept Number Three: Truth.
For thousands of years truth has been considered one of the highest virtues. There are many synonyms for truth: reality, actuality, authentic, genuine, valid, factual. We speak of gospel truth, naked truth, and unvarnished truth. Those who are truthful are considered honest, veracious, righteous, honorable, ethical, moral, proper, principled, noble, high-minded, uncorrupt, precise, and genuine.
In my lifetime, I have never seen such a disregard for truth among people in high government office, among the press, and among the people at large. We live in a collusion of lies where the ends justify the means and where language is not attached to reality. Even the laws of nature are being denied. How, for example, can people claim to believe in evolution and yet deny gender? Without gender there would be no evolution. There would be no life. Our nation was founded on the principle of absolute truth. Our Declaration of Independence states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
A self-evident truth is an absolute truth that is its own witness. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his Essay Self-Reliance, speaks of absolute truth:
“If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me, and do the same thing.”
We would all do well to follow the advice of Emerson when he said, “I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility.” Emerson would blush at our day for the democratic socialists are demanding that we sell our liberty to save their sensibility. We cannot even use personal pronouns anymore until someone declares their preference. America needs to stand tall against anyone who demands that we put their sensibilities above absolute truth. Sensibilities will not sustain us when our liberty falls, and it will fall if we do not stand for absolute truth. The highest truths are the laws of God. If we deny the laws of nature, then all truth becomes relative.
“If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for a strong man to be strong, as it is for a weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.”
