“Never try to deceive yourself, or offer a reason to believe other than probable truth”
This is just naive. What if you were abused as a child? You don’t think you’d be better off not knowing the truth, and deceiving yourself?
Believing / deceiving with respect to the truth in the individual / personal and cultural domains are closely related to forgetfulness, which itself is vital for forgiveness. Lacking these virtues, we’d have wars and vendettas without end. Past truth needs discounting.
The virtue being right and hewing to the truth is little comfort to the man beaten alive by his neighbours, convinced in their own righteousness. Ethics are one thing; but when a solid simulation of display of orthodoxy is necessary for the freedom to live your life, continuing to believe the truth internally is dangerous, because you’ll be liable to slip up.
Of course, these examples are relatively extreme, and most of us don’t live in particularly extreme times, so in general, I agree.
Even then, the present has some trends and assumptions built into it which would be socially unpleasant to question, so it is better not to think of such things, and to wallow in easy orthodoxy...
Truth is overrated.
“Never try to deceive yourself, or offer a reason to believe other than probable truth”
This is just naive. What if you were abused as a child? You don’t think you’d be better off not knowing the truth, and deceiving yourself?
Believing / deceiving with respect to the truth in the individual / personal and cultural domains are closely related to forgetfulness, which itself is vital for forgiveness. Lacking these virtues, we’d have wars and vendettas without end. Past truth needs discounting.
The virtue being right and hewing to the truth is little comfort to the man beaten alive by his neighbours, convinced in their own righteousness. Ethics are one thing; but when a solid simulation of display of orthodoxy is necessary for the freedom to live your life, continuing to believe the truth internally is dangerous, because you’ll be liable to slip up.
Of course, these examples are relatively extreme, and most of us don’t live in particularly extreme times, so in general, I agree.
Even then, the present has some trends and assumptions built into it which would be socially unpleasant to question, so it is better not to think of such things, and to wallow in easy orthodoxy...