Is It Worth Telling The Truth?

In Amusing Ourselves To Death, Postman states that "...the concept of truth is intimately linked to the biases of forms of expression. Truth does not, and never has, come unadorned. It must appear in its proper clothing or it is not acknowledged, which is a way of saying that the 'truth' is a kind of cultural prejudice."

In other words, if you can't talk good, you ain't tellin' the truth.

This holds true in many judicial cases today. I will give an example of a case I saw on 20/20. A black man from the projects is brought into court for a crime. He was only able to obtain a high school degree because he had to get a full-time job and take care of his family. Due to his history, he was not one of the more eloquent speakers. During his time at the witness stand, his defending testimony is filled with nervous stutters and slurs, taboo terms, and improper grammer. This serves as solid evidence that the man is obviously guilty. He has no rhetoric which obviously means he's not telling the truth. The jury finds him guilty and he is given 25 years. On year 23 of his term, the real criminal is caught. Everyone is amazed that the man was actually innocent.

Does his sentencing have anything to do with his rhetoric? Of course it does. Although we hope that we never wrongly convict somebody of something they didn't do, can we really prevent that? I don't think so. After reading this, I've realized that if I have no prior information, my will to believe someone's statement is based solely on their ability to say it. If you start paying attention, you will probably realize that as well.

In a society that only believes an eloquently-told story, should we even bother telling the truth? My answer: Yes, we should. We just be needing to know how to be talking kinda good.