Truth is the bridge on which we get from playing with subjective imaginations and interests to reality in order to change it. Without the will to find truth, without truthfulness, we remain trapped in one-sidedness and do not come into the world.
Changing sides from imagination to reality through knowledge of the truth is possible individually, but impossible collectively. For the individual there is truth and its effect: fulfillment; in the life of society as a whole there is only Imagination that is spun into narratives by interested parties, which can then appear to be truth to the unwary. Through these narratives the individual must find the truth in society, and they can only serve him as an occasion for his search.
That is the truth about the truth that I want to speak of. Understanding them is all media literacy we need.
Truth in the individual
Psychologically, the transition into reality is self-knowledge (consisting of reflection and experience). It arises from the confrontation with our suffering and the attitudes with which we have survived and tried to banish from then on.
Arriving in reality here means knowing yourself and gaining maturity: No more causing unnecessary suffering and increasing your happiness and productivity – by doing what is good for us and avoiding strange entanglements in minor matters. That is how we truly live.
Truth in society?
Everyone is true in the kingdom of heaven. There this virtue would be translated one-to-one into the whole of society and we would not find merely imaginary interests contested in the public debate. There would be peace, like in a person who knows himself.
Democracy representing parties is not heaven. Every citizen tries here to achieve what he wants with his partial self-knowledge and his partial realistic imaginations. A chaos orchestra of a thousand interests plays.
And it is overheard. Because if you want to go to parliament for your party, you have to be elected – and so listens to the more frequent imaginations and interests of the citizens and tries to bring them to the slogan that brings applause. The combination of several slogans is one in the political arena from their first repetition narrative – a story that as truth be valid and so should shape reality.
Stories are based on the assumptions of politicians and their speakers about what the most important imaginations and interests of the people are, and try to combine these with known people in a way that corresponds to their own imaginations and interests.
Away from reality
There are always several distortions between reality and a public narrative. It is not to be expected that it will meet the truth which an examination of its concepts and assertions reveals.
Narratives are at the same time the decisive means and material of politics in a medialized society. If we accept them unchecked as truths and if we orient our lives according to them, we have become the means and material of politics ourselves. If someone wants to tell you that you have to help marginalize fellow citizens, then check the terms and contexts so that you do not become blindly guilty.
Michael Andrick is a philosopher and manager from Berlin. His book “Success Empty” (Alber 2020) is a contemporary diagnosis of industrial society that offers an explanation for mass, unquestionable conformity and reflects on ways of avoiding it.