Fact, Truth and Freedom as Foundation
By Elempe Dele
Yes, on several forum, I have argued that truth is a relative concept, and could be subjective, but fact is not. Fact is as consistent as the northern star. Truth is mostly ascribed to represent reality or correspond to it. However, it is the margin of this correspondence that makes it subjective. Meanwhile, fact is a verifiable truth either from experience or from observation.
Under this article, I wish to be allowed to administer truth and fact in the context human relationship as a single entity. This is so because in some instance, when we see the truth, we know it. I admit it is not always so though.
The factual truth is upon which reliance and honour are erected in human relations. Without this, relationships waver and communities with the capital C lose their bonds. In our modern societies, what guides us away from deception and misinformation is our reliance and perception of facts. We must look for searchlights to beam on uprightness, or perhaps moral correctness. It is through this search we can be committed to openness and accountability in our own lives as well as to the public. A man who cannot tell himself the truth cannot be truthful to the public. He stands for falsehood, whatever he says is discarded as untrue.
What truth does basically is to afford the human spirit freedom. And what is freedom? Is it not the precipitation of being entitled – that liberation? Is freedom not that region where individuals thrive in their creativity? Freedom to me is the democratic expression of our inner beings to pursue our thoughts, our feelings, our aspirations, our desires, our longings…it is saturating our destiny. Freedom is the act of enabling the human potentials without restrictions.
Humans, for the purpose of liveliness, can merge together the concepts of truth and freedom to form a formidable endeavour. While truth provides us that integrity to navigate through complex human relationships that normally exist between one human and other, between one human and the society, freedom offers the elasticity to nurture, to create, to initiate, to experience, and to device. It is this holy merger that creates in human that honour and dignity and integrity the larger society sought after.
Our world is dragged into a cocoon of lies, disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, binding and blinding rhetorics that spread like wildfire making truth and freedom of thoughts to consistently be under severe threat. It is at this very moment that truth, and freedom to express thoughts must be on everyone’s menu as to uphold the scaffolding of human relationships. We must be the totem poles holding and propping truth. We must not allow evidence to be jettisoned for speculation or transparent untruth. We must address the need for critical thinking against shallow agreements rooted in falsehood. We must protect acts that encourage freedom, not by only defending it as a right, but by making sure it is seen as part of human attribute that must not challenged when done within the ambit of the law.
Yes, truth is a product of choice, like many other human attributes such as love, honesty, virtue but for the sake of human preservation, we must seek it and hold on to it because it is deserving. Many prodigious minds have attributed this foundational issue of truth to freedom, without which, something from the social order is taken away permanently.
Truth and freedom are unique to humans even when they are elastic. Without these two concepts, humanity is violated. We must therefore be vigilant as to participate in their honouring from time to time. No doubt, as we keep nurturing these elements in our hearts and bequeath the larger society with their results, we do nothing other build a just and equitable place for mankind.
