Truth and the Happiness Index

Thanksgiving was recently celebrated in the United States. As a holiday it represented a time to give thanks for the blessing that we have, regardless of the hardships we have endured. Given that 2020 has been a year to remember it’s a time for us to reflect on many things that have taken place during the course of the year. We need to do this because the future is likewise uncertain and contains many possibilities that are out of our ability to control.

The thanksgiving story, in brief, talks about the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth (Plimouth) Rock and how they shared their mutual bounty with the Wampanoag Indian tribe.  As it turns out this legend is grossly inaccurate in that the Pilgrims didn’t land at Plymouth and they didn’t share their bounty. Historically, the locations and events never took place and the realities were not something that would be considered as a civil interchange.

The lie started when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving in 1863. It was a day conceived to serve as a day of reconciliation between the North and the South. In true political form, although not at the hand of Lincoln, the story was created to coincide with the bountiful harvest that comes forth in the fall. Tied to an agrarian them it became creative license to relate the early settlement. Since much of those early years were marred with bloodshed, disease, slavery and general social misconduct one had to bury the sins in order to elevate the virtues of the holiday.

One has to wonder whether an untruth is acceptable when happiness can be achieved? Some might call this a white lie, which implies as having a small impact consequence. In this particular case it’s hardly a small issue when it comes to the atrocities that occurred. Bear in mind that even considering the brutality of the past, by comparison to today, one cannot justify the savage behavior taking place. I tried to relate this to my own code of personal and professional conduct where the search, respect and adoption of fervent truth basis faces a conflict with untruth.

There is no doubt that not only is the story behind the holiday abjectly inaccurate but it a downright fabrication of fact. It is deceptively inaccurate and contributes to perpetuating of a lie. Despite this misconduct is it ok to live with the lie and will real factual disclosure contribute constructively? Certainly from a knowledge standpoint it would be viewed as constructive, and likewise it would give notice to the injustices. But would these two contributes prove to achieve greater value than harmony, feastful unification and taking a moment to give thanks regardless of circumstances? There is NO right answer but a reality that is rightly deliberate in putting forth positives. As is often the case we need to bury the past and use the rich knowledge to shape our future, not feeling that every wrong deserves a blood oath of rectification.

Thus the question remains as to whether a positive tradition, despite the lack of truth, should be cast aside and in doing so leaving a void. As with all gaps they can refilled and this leads to them being filled with both positives as well as negatives. In the setting of today truth has become ever absent, thus requiring intense and deliberate evaluation of everything we come in contact with. We have become the masters of wordsmithing, using strategically placed superlatives to turn a cow’s ear into a silk purse. We do this because of the unbridled thirst for instantaneous satisfaction, requiring low discernment and endorsed by the masses. Therefore untruth becomes a truth with a high happiness index. The hunger for actual truth has been lost to a quest for tranquility and as we look back it has been taking place for a very long time. Why it has come to the forefront is the result of the proliferation of ready access information. This allows us to become armchair intellectuals even though it’s based entirely on questionable facts. In this case we see truth constantly in conflict with untruths but because of the satisfaction level truths are relegated to time out.  Self-proclaimed armchair intellectuals will fight the fight based on their desire for happiness at all cost, thus the blindness in authenticity.

This new found awareness doesn’t change my personal commitment to truth. It also will not change how untruth is treated, rather it creates an opportunity for temperance. Permitting a lie to exist for a larger good rather than insisting on a definitive binary response. The caveat is the moral measure that must be exercised when the consequences are such that it has a more pervasive and damaging affect. When this potential exists careful but vigilant attention must be exercised in order to avoid polarization and minimize disrupting contentment.   Those creating the lies and convoluted fabrication have a social responsibility to exercise truth first, and license only when it can serve for a common good. If used as a powerful misconception that this is not acceptable.

 Ref: https://www.capecodtimes.com/in-depth/news/2020/11/19/plymouth-400-mayflower-first-thanksgiving-pilgrims-wampanoag-massasoit/6283891002/?fbclid=IwAR1wig9XN8cWXEsRTCtdiI5VcjfRftRkVAdOqRVzDDROyhmG32gYjbC4Z7c Cape Cod Times, Eryn Dion, Nov. 24, 2020, 11:54pm.

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