The Barriers That Hide Truth From Us

Can they be surmounted? 

David Yeagley, on his webstite Bad Eagle posted this article: "Malkin, Mercer, and Schlussel on Sotomayor". I never read conservative, or non-liberal writers these days, since their whole being has morphed into liberal bashing. I don't think they inform me, or provide for me any insightful commentary that would help elucidate the world around me. This is how I responded to his article:

There are some really interesting women writers, who don’t have their snarkiness. Diana West is one, and with a successful, non-snarky, informative and insightful book out called "The Death of the Grown Up"... Another is more of an academic - Christina Hoff Summers. She’s the one everyone quotes for ideas on what’s happening to young boys.

Your trio (or more) of women pundits are really just followers, David. They don’t bring original insights, and almost all of their writing is a quote of a quote of a quote.

One of his reactions to my comments was : "The Sword of Amhara has arrived. (I knew it!)".

Now, for some reason, this really irritated me. I responded a little hastily: 

David, I know it is really your style to categorize people in terms of their tribal groups, but these days, even the Amhara don’t really find much similarity with me. I grew up in England, France, in complete isolation of Ethiopians. When I came here, it was rather a culture shock to find so many Ethiopians.

Whatever I say, I say as a Westerner. That is how my mind thinks.

A little later, and a little calmer, I posted this:

I think I understand what irritated me about this. It is as though if I (as an example) get angry or voice a slightly controversial opinion, in your eyes (sorry to put you on the spot), it could be a relative truth as in "This is how an Amhara says it, or reacts to it" as opposed to: "this might be a possible truth."

As though truth is a relative thing, with some more approachable to it, and others not.

I’ve noticed you use the same analogy with women.

Now, this is a really interesting problem. If truth seeking, or truth recognition is only privy to certain groups, what does this mean?

I base my speculations on a purely intuitive premise, and that, I base on religious truth.

If one claims that certain groups of people cannot get at Truth, one is claiming they cannot get at the Truth of God. That is a pretty stiff condemnation to make.

Everyone has the ability to see the light of that Truth. If everyone can see that Truth, how about the mundane truths of everyday life, choosing between truth and falsehood, right and wrong? Those too. 

The barrier that gets in the way of truth, I think, is our ego. In response to David Yeagely's article, I call that vanity, for women at least. Some women are affected by it, others less so. And perhaps women are affected by it more so than men, which makes their barrier harder to surmount.

Rather than the inability to see, or tell, the truth, it is some kind of barrier which can come between the truth and us knowing or practicing it. Maybe that what David Yeagley is talking about.

So, the secret to truth-telling or truth-seeking might just be this barrier. And the task is how to prevent it from overshadowing our reception of truth.