Truthiness and You
Fans of Stephen Colbert are probably familiar with the term Truthiness, which he introduced in the inaugural episode of the now extremely popular Colbert Report. He explains the word as what we feel to be true rather than what’s factually or arguably true. For instance one might argue that it’s okay not to report a little side income to the IRS because it was insignificant and not from one’s primary employment, and it just feels like found money rather than real taxable income. Your gut tells you so! Or, in one of Colbert’s examples, he explains that it may be possible to find holes in the argument to go to war with Iraq (keep in mind this aired in 2005), but that it felt right to take out Saddam Hussein.
It’s essentially a comical take on the tension we all feel between what we want to be true and what we can argue objectively. To be sure, we can justify a lot of bad behavior this way. We know all kinds of things from traffic violations to cheating on a test to lying about income are wrong, but we do them anyway and justify them with any number of rationalizations. These rationalizations have the flavor of truthiness, and we eat them up.
I think that the term truthiness gives us a way to distinguish this kind of behavior and to remind us to keep watch for it. Colbert mocks the truthiness politicians use to sell their ideas to the public; we can follow suit and mock the truthiness we use to sell rationalizations to ourselves.
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves
The phrase “what we feel to be true rather than what’s factually or arguably true” doesn’t sit well with me.
I know we allow ourselves rather more leeway than we allow others – remember Bernard Woolley’s irregular verbs? – and that we rationalise things we want to be true. Is that a reason to dismiss everything our moral intuition or conscience tell us? The war with Iraq felt wrong to me before it became clear there were no reasonable justifications. So maybe our disapproval of the war is equally a truthiness, an a posteriori rationalisation of what we want to be true?
Perhaps more profoundly, I feel that it’s simplistic to assign a “factual and arguable” truth value to a value judgement, i.e. something that is not testable. Reality is bunk!
Colbert needs to go a step further and identify “absolute truth”.
Sales tax on Amazon purchases is an easy one to disregard.
I pay mine of course.
. . . and the rationalization that this truth doesn’t really apply to you, the reader-thinker.
Thank you Dan Ariely. More, please!
Delft wrote: “The war with Iraq felt wrong to me before it became clear there were no reasonable justifications. So maybe our disapproval of the war is equally a truthiness, an a posteriori rationalisation of what we want to be true?”
It’s true that when we think we have established a pattern or connection, it can lead to skewed observations from that point on (“selective observation”), such as when we notice things more or less depending on whether we expect them, or whether they reinforce our current beliefs.
But I don’t think Dan is ruling this out this scenario. Rather, he seems to be saying there ARE things that are measurably, objectively true, and these things are distinct from things that we merely “feel” to be true without sufficient evidence.
I do not think he is suggesting we ignore or denigrate our conscience, but rather that we should not make judgments solely on intuition or anything else that exists without factual verification. It does not diminish the value of “gut feelings” to say they are not sufficient to prompt action.
You guys are not understanding what truth is. Truth is absolute. Absolute truth cannot be fully understood by us because we are finite beings. We are capable of understanding some of what truth is, but never all. We must therefore accept to trust, or have faith in what the whole of absolute truth is. In other words we with our limited knowledge can only see complete truth as fuzzy. That which is beyond the fuzzy, we must have faith.
Check the internet. There are sites that can logically prove the existence of absolute truth, even though we cannot fully understand it.
Actually, George Orwell introduced the concept of thruthiness in his novel 1984, which I’m pretty sure is viewed as a how-to manual by politicians these days. Orwell used the word “bellythink” to describe the same thing as truthiness. You should know this…sad that you don’t.
Thanks a lot.I learn much from your lecture.
Gror wrote: “Actually, George Orwell introduced the concept of thruthiness in his novel 1984…. Orwell used the word “bellythink” to describe the same thing as truthiness. You should know this…sad that you don’t.”
What makes you think Dan doesn’t know this? He said Colbert introduced the word “Truthiness” in his inaugural episode. He didn’t claim that Colbert invented the concept of gut-check verification — simply that the TV host first mentioned this specific term Truthiness” on his first episode. Which is true. It is your assumption — that Dan must be ignorant of a concept because he did not mention it in this particular article — that is false.
It would be more constructive, positive, and interesting to suggest the Orwell connection as a topic for consideration here in comments — instead of using it to criticize the blogger (and on false premises, too).
Hey Dan, maybe your next book can be on the anatomy and function of the human belief that we make ourselves look smart by putting others down.