Last Friday I heard about an interesting story from the
world of theater. Phelim McAleer has written a play about the shooting of
Michael Brown and, with a week to go until the debut, the actors are walking
out. The issue causing their complaint is integrity. The play appears to have
more than they can bear. (Jack Nicholson, check your phone messages. Some
people “can’t handle the truth.”)
Ferguson: The Play uses a technique called “verbatim
theater.” The script is based solely on the testimony received by the grand
jury. What is written is what was actually said in the court room as the grand
jury decided whether or not it was proper to bring an indictment against the
accused officer, a vital step in maintaining due process in our courts. The
audience is intended to see and hear what the grand jury heard, to be exposed
to what was really known and true. And therein lies the problem, at least for
some of the actors.
The truth doesn’t match the narrative. It doesn’t match the
media accounts. It doesn’t match the screaming protesters, the race warriors,
the grievance mongers. The truth in uncomfortable for many, so uncomfortable
that several actors have walked out completely. Others are lobbying for changes
in the script that will remove some of the positive light the testimony shines
on the officer. As one of the actors discussed, the truth is “subjective.” As
opposed to the will of the mob.
The idea of “subjective” truth has been a significant force
in liberal philosophy for some time now. Far from building up any form of
cohesion or peace in society, I think it has contributed to a terrible decline.
A slide in standards of integrity, honesty. A lack of trust. A refusal to even
try to communicate. After all, if “your” truth is different than “my” truth,
then agreement is impossible on the matter, and engagement a useless exercise.
It’s been a terrible slide, and now we approach a horrible
bottom. We saw it in the Michael Brown case. We saw it in the Trayvon Martin
case, in the Duke Lacrosse “Rape” case. “Truth” for many is determined before
any investigation of the matter, much less a trial. And even when the facts are
known, people still cling to their own “truth,” unwilling or unable to learn,
to accept what is, unless it agrees with their own view. For if “truth” is
subjective, then so is “false.”
The officer in Ferguson became a public pariah, the object
of scorn and harassment. It’s a darn lousy payback for putting your neck on the
line to do a necessary job. About the only positive thing for him was that,
despite calls from the mob, the grand jury did its job. They took the
testimony. And under oath, the witnesses did their jobs. They gave the facts.
Not the media spin, not the hearsay. They told what they saw and what they
heard. I have to wonder if it will be like that next time.
The ninth commandment of the Bible states “You shall not
bear false witness against your neighbor.” Many will opine that it is also a
command for honesty in all that you do (an interpretation I agree with). But in
its purest form, the command is very simple. Or it should be. And yet, what
will happen as more and more people embrace the idea that “truth is subjective,”
that their reality is fine, if others disagree, so what? What happens to just,
for any of us, as “true” and “false” become fluid, subject to the whims of
whoever is speaking? It’s happened in our schools. It’s happened in our courts,
in the way that judges interpret the laws that we live by. And if it happens in
our testimony, in how we determine guilt and innocence?
Truth and justice are inseparable. There is nothing
subjective about that. As one falls, so does the other, dragging us all to the
bottom with it.
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