To tell you the truth and nothing but the truth

by Prof. J. B. Disanayaka

(November 20, Bangkok, Sri Lanka Guardian) On a day like today, the eighteenth of November, which has been declared the World Philosophical Day, the UNESCO in Bangkok, wants us to be a little philosophical. They want us to pause for a while and reflect upon what is happening around us and what we are doing about it. I am no philosopher but when one reaches the evening of one’s life, one tends to look back and philosophize.

One of the finest phrases that have found a place in my memory is a statement that I found in the Preamble to the Constitution of the UNESCO which says that "since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defenses of peace must be constructed". How true and prophetic is this statement!

This raises the fundamental question: "Why do wars begin in the minds of men?" For the simple reason that emotions and ideas arise in the minds of men and that some of these emotions and ideas begin to clash with those of others. Wars, in the final analysis, are really the result of clash of emotions and ideas with those of others. Peace can be achieved only by the avoidance of such clashes.

I make a distinction between emotions and ideas. Emotions are inherent and inborn. Ideas, on the other hand, are implanted in our minds. However it is difficult to draw a sharp line between these two because we don’t know where emotions end and ideas begin. I think they are interdependent. Emotions generate ideas and ideas arouse emotions.

Emotions are of two kinds: positive and negative. Emotions such as affection, love, joy, happiness, satisfaction, compassion and sympathy may be considered ‘positive’ because they lead to peace, harmony and tranquility. Emotions such as anger, animosity, hate, hostility, greed, envy, jealousy and revenge lead to conflict, discord and ultimately war.

Greed, for instance, is an emotion that is attached to wealth, money, power, food and sex. This, in turn, leads to dishonesty, deception, exploitation, corruption and nepotism. They, in the final analysis, lead to dissent, conflict and war.

Ideas are also of all kinds but they are basically of two kinds: ‘good ideas’ and ‘bad ideas’. Don’t we often tell our friends "That’s a good idea" or "That’s not a bad idea"? Good ideas are pleasant, wholesome, constructive and positive. Bad ideas, on the other hand, are unpleasant, unwholesome, harmful, destructive and negative.

Ideas generate other ideas; some ideas come and go and, there is absolutely no end to ideas. Today let’s leave emotions alone and talk about ideas. Isn’t that a good idea?

I think it’s good to have ideas, more the merrier. Human life is rich only because we have innumerable ideas. Our art and architecture, poetry and drama, music and dance, food and dress and so on have made human culture so precious because of the ideas that we have cherished since the dawn of human history. These ideas have resulted in producing an enormous cultural heritage that the UNESCO is now trying to preserve for posterity.

I have some ideas about ideas themselves. First and foremost is that our ideas differ. No two individuals have the same set of ideas. I think that it is good to have ideas that differ. It makes human culture all the more different, diverse and desirable. It takes the monotony out of human life. It makes life worth living.

Secondly: since there are all kinds of ideas, there is a tendency to evaluate them as ‘good’ ‘better’ and ‘best’ or as ‘true’ ‘comparatively true’ and ‘absolutely true’. You think, more often than not, that your ideas are the ‘best ideas’ or that they are ‘better’ or ‘truer’ than those of others. When you cannot simply accept another’s idea as good, you say "You must be out of your mind"!

In my view, there is no harm in your conviction that your ideas are better than others. That conviction gives you a lot of energy, enthusiasm, excitement and power to work towards some goal. It is such convictions that produced some of the greatest minds in human history.

If I were asked to name fifteen of the greatest minds of our age, I would list the following, in alphabetical order: Aristotel, Emperor Ashoka, the Buddha, Christ, Confucius, Darwin, Einstein, Engels, Freud, Marx, Mohammed, Plato, Pythagoras, Shakespeare and Voltaire.

If I were asked to name four of the greatest minds of my time, I would not hesitate to name Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Noam Chomsky (1928-) and Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2007). That’s my idea and you may or may not agree with me. That’s perfectly alright. You are entitled to your opinion. Your choice is as good as mine.

Why do I consider these four above all the others as ‘great minds’? I have my own reasons. Gandhi was a simple man who transformed ‘non-violence’ [ahimsa] into a powerful force to fight British imperialism in India. After his unique non-violent campaign, India saw the dawn of freedom in 1947.

Tagore, the first Indian to win a Nobel prize, was a man who wanted to bring the best in the East and the West together. India honoured him by choosing one of his compositions ‘jana gana mana adhi nayaka jaya he’, [Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people] to be the national anthem.

Chomsky, my own ‘guru’ in Modern Linguistics, is a man who spear-headed a revolution in linguistic thought. His idea of language and grammar differed from all traditional ideas. In his view, the human being differs from all other animals by his unique competence to generate a new grammatical sentence when he needs one.

Clarke, a British by birth, was considered "the prophet of the space age". He died only three years ago in his second mother-land, Sri Lanka. I liked him not only because I enjoyed his science fiction but also because he chose to live in my country. I like his ideas about my country. Let me quote, from his Epilogue to Roloff Beny’s ‘Island Ceylon’(1970) :

"It may well be that each of Ceylon’s attractions is surpassed somewhere on Earth: Cambodia may have more impressive ruins, Tahiti lovelier beaches, Bali more beautiful landscapes (though I doubt it), Thailand more charming people (ditto). But I find it hard to believe that there is any country which scores so highly in all departments" Anyway, that was Clarke’s idea and I like it. I couldn’t have put it better.

From all this it is clear that people’s minds are full of ideas and that they think that their ideas are better than those of others. So far, so good. However, the problem begins when you try to convince or persuade others to believe that only your ideas are true and correct, at the expense of those of others.

Those who believe that their ideas are the only true ones will resist all attempts to change their stand. They will stand by their ideas and are ready to fight for their convictions. Thus begins the clash of ideas which will ultimately result in wars. Letretrace out steps to understand what takes place in our minds.

To begin with, how do we get ideas? In my view, ideas are implanted in our minds by others. By ‘others’ I mean not only other individuals but also other external sources and social processes such as language, socialization, acculturation, education, religion and politics.

Language is the very first process that implants ideas in the human child. The impact of language on the human being is so crucial that philosophers and psycholinguists say that speakers of a language live in a world of reality created by their own language. In other words, it is language that creates some of the basic ideas in our minds.

For instance, an English speaker lives in a world of reality in which ‘fingers’ are different from ‘toes’. I, as a speaker of Sinhalese, make no such distinction: For me, both are [aengili] : ‘fingers of the hand’ and ‘fingers of the feet’. For the English, ‘hand’ is the end part of the ‘arm’ beyond the wrist. As a speaker of Sinhalese, I see no difference between the hand and the arm because both are labeled [ata].

An English speaker ‘eats’ bread, ‘drinks’ tea and ‘smokes’ cigarettes. For him this three-fold distinction is real; In my world of reality, however, things are different: I see no real difference between ‘drinking’ and ‘smoking; A Sinhalese will ‘drink’ [bonava] not only tea but also cigars and cigarettes! The Sinhalese have reduced the three processes into two.

Thai speakers, on the other hand, make no distinction between eating and drinking. They say [kin] whether they eat or drink. Bengali speakers go a step further: they say [khao] meaning ‘to eat’ for all three actions: eating, drinking and smoking. Now who is right? Who sees reality in the true perspective?

In one sense, all speakers are equally right. They hold the view implanted in their minds by their languages. This kind of truth may be labeled ‘linguistic truth’, truth defined by language. Is there any need to argue that the linguistic truth that you uphold is the ultimate truth? Do you want others to believe that your language alone has captured reality and that others have not?

Education implants another body of ideas in your mind. The knowledge and skills that you gain in the classroom, the library, the play ground and the gymnasium, introduce into your mind a whole body of ideas, concepts, axioms, opinions, hypotheses and theories that will either blend with those of others or generate conflicts.

Science, for instance, lays down ways and means of thinking straight. The scientific method tells us how to use our intelligence to argue logically to arrive at empirical conclusions. The scientific conclusion is something that all scientists agree upon irrespective of their national, ethnic, linguistic, religious or political background. This kind of truth may be labeled ‘scientific truth’.

Since scientific truth is based on empirical data available at a given point of time, it may have to be changed or modified in the light of new data. For a long time, scientists upheld the view that the smallest particle of a chemical element was the ‘atom’. This view had to be changed when they discovered that even atoms consist of smaller particles known as ‘electrons’ ‘protons’ and ‘neutrons’. Scientific truth is, by definition, relative.

Closely linked with science is philosophy, ‘the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence.’ As you know, reality is the state of things as they actually exist. This is a very abstruse study because it attempts to understand ‘truth’ itself without reference to human decisions, assumptions or conventions.

Sometimes philosophers themselves find philosophy a hard subject to comprehend. Some say that philosophy is "a search in a dark room for a black cat that is not there"! In spite of such sarcastic definitions, philosophers have done a great deal to make us understand reality that surrounds us. This kind of truth may be labelled ‘philosophical truth.’

Religion is another source that brings into your mind ideas that may later develop into conflicts. Religion is broadly the belief in and the worship of a super-human power, known by different names. Christians have named him ‘God’ and Muslims have named ‘Allah’. Christians think that Christ is the son of God and Muslims think that Muhammed is a prophet.

Hindus do not believe in a single all powerful god, but in a world of gods, in which three are very important; Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the protector and Shiva, the destroyer. They believe in the immortality of the human soul [atma] and the ultimate union of the individual soul with the universal soul [paramatma].

Buddhism believes neither in an all-powerful God nor in a universal Soul. Some think that Buddhism is not a religion at all but only a philosophy.

One of the three characteristics on Buddhism rests is the absence of a soul [an-atma], the other two being ‘impermanence’ (a-nitya] and ‘un-satisfactoriness’ [duhkha]. In order to eliminate ‘duhkha’ and attain eternal bliss [nirvana] a path has been shown.

Then there are those who do not believe in any organized religion.For they are absolutely convinced that there is no God at all. In their conviction, it was not God who created man; it was only man who created God, gods and godlings. If there were an all merciful God, atheists question, why should he allow his own followers to fight and kill themselves in his name?

The four major religions of the world are based on four types of truth proclaimed or expounded by their founders. The follower of each religion upholds the truth of his religion as sacred, sacrosanct and inviolable. He takes this truth to be ‘gospel truth’, too valuable to be interfered with. This kind of truth may be labeled ‘religious truth.’

Closely related to religion is religious mythology. Our minds are full of ideas that we have inherited from such mythological beliefs.

The Old Testament, for instance, takes the Christian into a wonderful world of myths and beliefs. The Garden of Eden where the first man Adam met the first woman, Eve, was a place of un-spoilt beauty. So is Paradise.

Hindu mythology has created another many other worlds of beings: In these worlds are gods, demons, spirits and animals of different kinds: those with one head or many heads; with a human head or an animal head; with two eyes, three eyes or a thousand eyes; with two arms or many arms. There are also gods who are half-male and half-female. They use animals as vehicles.

Buddhist mythology also speaks of gods or deities [deva] who live in six blissful heavens, one above the other. The position of gods, however, is not above man. For man and man alone is supreme. Man is his own master or saviour and there is no divine power sitting in judgment over his destiny. According to Buddhist belief, it is gods who venerate men and women who are on the moral path to purity.

Religious mythology is not based on scientific truth but on faith and belief. It is based on the idea that something exists or that something is true even though there is no empirical evidence either to prove it or disprove it. The existence of a divine power and of life after death, for instance, is simply a matter of belief. Those who are convinced that these beliefs are true uphold what may be termed ‘mythological truth’.

Then there are many political ideologies that have implanted ideas in our minds. Feudalism, Capitalism, Marxism, Communism, Socialism and Democracy, for instance, have given us innumerable ideas that keep our minds at work. For the Marxists, what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said is nothing but the truth. This kind of truth may be termed ‘ideological truth’.

Don’t we sometimes say that something is ‘absolutely true’? For instance, isn’t the idea that everything is in a flux be considered an ‘absolute truth’? Greek philosophers such as Hereclitus have said that a man cannot step twice into the same river because, in the meantime, the river has changed. Didn’t the Buddha go a step further when he said that the same man cannot step into the same river because, in the meantime, both the man and the river have changed?

Scientists also admit that their own theories are also in a flux, in a state of change from time to time. Political ideologies come and go. If that is so, then we have to think of another variety of truth that may be called ‘absolute truth’ ‘ultimate truth’ or ‘universal truth.’ This kind of truth is something that everyone, irrespective of their differences, accepts as true.

All this leads me to conclude that there are, at least, seven types of truth: linguistic, scientific, philosophical, religious, mythological, ideological and universal. There may be more. You might want to add some ‘home truths’, like ‘To err is human’ early bird catches the worm’, ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ ‘Penny wise, pound foolish’ ‘Waste not, want not’. It all depends on how you look at it. Whatever the number, the fact of the matter is that our minds are full of ideas and truths.

That some uphold their ideas as ‘truer’ than those of others is also true. However, conflicts arise only when you try to convince others that your idea and your idea alone is true. To think that only you know the truth and that all others are so ignorant that do not know the truth is the source of all conflicts.

In the area of religious thought, ideas that you don’t accept are called ‘heresies’. Those who hold such ideas are considered ‘heretics’ or ‘heathens.’ Attempts to suppress such ‘heresy’ or convert ‘heathens’ into the so-called ‘right path’ or punish them have always resulted in war.

The Crusades and the Inquisition were two instances when violence and torture were used to suppress heresy resulting from conflicts of religious truth. Crusades were military expeditions led by Christians to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal set up for the suppression of heresy, especially by the use of torture.

It is sad that religion which, in origin, was intended to unite people by bringing them peace and harmony has now become a weapon of

division. More and more bombs now explode in temples, mosques and churches. More and more sacred sites have been declared ‘high security zones’. More and more soldiers guard sacred sites!

Conflicts of political ideologies too have also resulted in innumerable wars that brought about human misery. Struggles, revolts, rebellions, revolutions and wars are but different facets of the same phenomenon: the conflict of ideas and truths that are generated in the human mind.

‘That wars begin in the minds of men and women and that defenses of peace must be constructed in their minds’ is such a truism that I’d like to call it an ‘absolute truth’, a ‘universal truth’ or an ‘ultimate truth’. The founding fathers of the UNESCO must be congratulated for making this universal truth UNESCO’s guiding principle.

To tell you the truth, this is the truth I wanted to tell you!

( The writer, Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.)