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Speaking the “truth”
One of the first lessons of using the internet is who do you trust to get your information from. We all laugh at those who get their 4chan, yet most of us simply consume the information we find online without really engaging who is behind the source. When we talk about truth we assume that we understand what truth actually looks like, a gut feeling that we simply know what we are looking at must be some version of the truth. Which is why when people online go hunting for truth they always find a kaleidoscope which they must navigate, a Google search here, a Reddit scroll there, a perpetual hunt. Who do we trust with the truth and why?
It can feel we are in Plato’s cave with many fires burning, casting all forms of shadows making truth as much about finding the shadow you want to stare at as much as finding a way to turn around and see the light. What that light looks like and where the entrance to the cave leads is as much an enigma as the truth itself. For all the philosophy, we can only ever rely on the influences we can find, on the sources presented to us. When any of us talk about the truth we are really taking about our own personal accumulation of sources and perspectives. Without accounting for that we can end up going down rabbit holes and into conspiracy theories, or worse, assuming that our perspective is the only perspective worth having.
