James Lang, Rotary District 7980 Communications Officer, spoke to Westport Sunrise Rotary at our 7:30AM breakfast on April 26, 2019.
Trumbull Rotarian Jim Lang used an article in the current edition of The Rotarian, "The Four Way Test in a post-truth era," to talk, not about truth itself, but about a technology used to "determine" truth - the polygraph.
His message was that the device measures stress, not truth, and so assesses guilt with the approximate accuracy of a coin flip; that the US is the last industrialized country to allow its use, that is used almost exclusively by law enforcement; and, that no one can be compelled to submit to its use.
The subject article was written by Joseph Epstein, a conservative public intellectual, an essayist, and the former editor of The American Scholar, the Phi Beta Kappa society's journal.
He offers a philosopher's evaluation of what is certainly a core idea in western thought, though his approach is overkill to understanding the Four Way Test, in that the Test seems intended to be easily comprehended and routinely applied in day to day interactions rather than as an intellectual paradigm designed to survive rigorous academic assessment.
Epstein opining on the Four Way Test is akin to having a physicist change your spark plugs.
He begins, truth "seems to be losing prestige in public life," i.e., politics. He cites the lie Senator Richard Blumenthal told about serving in Vietnam (then, to Epstein, inconceivably getting re-elected and now passing judgement on his opponents). Likewise, the "taste for braggadocio and hyperbole of our current president... (which are) outside the normal bounds of accuracy" that were the norm for his predecessors.
Truth, he believes, has devolved to spin, the twisting of the truth to meet one's own needs, something revered by politicians and others for whom "truth is often a serious inconvenience." Then spin has devolved to narrative, which itself has devolved from a "neutral account of events" to "my version."
Spin and narrative are both forms of relativism
(to Epstein, a bete noir)
, an idea that yields a world with "no central truths, only contending versions of what passes for truth."
Thus everything becomes subjective, and truth "has no real authority."
To return it to its essential place believers in truth must defend it. And this "is surely one of the chief intentions behind the Four-Way Test."
Being Fair to All is "lashed" to "Is it the Truth?" Truth may be difficult, but "if it is unfair, it is not the truth." Truth is impartial, hence, fair.
So politics has never provided fruitful ground for truth because politics forces people to choose sides. Once done, one's truth is colored by his views of those unlike him.
Truth and fairness are most under attack when passions are aroused, and nothing arouses
passions
as readily as politics, largely because politics is about competing ideas of virtue.
What to do? Keep in mind the "aspirational impulse" of the third and fourth questions - Will it build good will? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? In politics, yes, but only if you focus on truth and fairness.
Are we so divided because we, as a nation, have abandoned the spirit of the Four Way Test? Perhaps so, unless we can "
cultivat
e a certain detachment," step outside ourselves and view truth apart from our own interest."
And succeeding at that is similarly part of becoming a good Rotarian, Epstein concludes.
Does Epstein's view of the Four Way Test pass the Four Way Test when it is narrowly applied to a sphere earmarked by self-serving excess, or are truth, fairness, good will and benefit to all concerned not really philosophical abstracts, but rather straightforward guideposts to daily life?
And it may perhaps be glibly added that a bit more truth in the political world would certainly serve our citizenry.
