By Samm Sharp and Ale Ibarra Posted April 26, 2019
From what you can already tell, the title of this article isn’t accurate. Nobody can really know what the truth is or is not unless it can be proven. The truth, whatever it may be, cannot be simplified. If it were to be simplified, it would then be inaccurate because it does not contain all of the points that make the statement true. This can all be very confusing because, as mentioned, the truth can’t be made easier than it is. Of course, there are certain twists society creates in order to make something “look” or “sound” truthful. Everybody has a different idea of what the truth is. You can believe one thing and claim it’s the truth, but someone else can believe something completely different. So, how do we know what’s true and what’s not?
SOCIAL MEDIA
We as a society use social media as a way to present ourselves; so somehow our mindset constructed the idea of social media. Because you can put anything out there, whether it be the truth or a lie, your profiles are the quickest way for people to judge you. Think about it; when a friend speaks of someone you don’t know, what’s your first instinct? Do you pick up your phone and search for an account?
In Claussen’s point of view, receiving positive feedback has become an addictive part of social media.
“By getting your friends to slide up on your Snapchat stories and comment nice things on your Instagram pictures, it’s not only validated mentally unhealthy behavior that we allow but also alters their perception of us as well, making it an endless and repeating cycle of craving validation from yourself and our peers,” said Claussen.
If you have a smartphone, have you ever taken a moment to compare a digital picture of someone to their face in real life? You can’t help but notice in the picture that maybe their skin is clearer, their face looks rounder, or their forehead isn’t really that big. Today’s cameras are way too smart, in the simplest of terms. They automatically fix our flaws, which makes every picture we take a false image of ourselves. With editing apps such as VSCO and Facetune, you can change the shape of your nose, the tone of your skin, the highlights of your hair; even your eye color.
The cameras on all of our smartphones are incredibly altered with more than just filters and enhancements. There are now certain algorithms that are engrained to Apple cameras; more so on the latest models. The iPhone camera lens now is not the same as the one from an iPhone 6. An iPhone X camera, for example, knows too much. It takes all of the information from multiple image memory into one picture, along with all of the networks trained to understand the situations they’re being pointed at.
Not everyone feels the need to present themselves with a bronze skin tone and a slim nose. Not everyone gives in to what society has deemed “attractive”. Their truth has nothing to do with the truth that has been affecting the majority of the population. While nothing is wrong with changing your facial features for the world to see, it is simply just not the truth. That is a truth that can be proved inaccurate.
Senior Kimmy Claussen thinks that the societal norms of beauty have been established within ourselves and have managed to take over the way we view one another.
“The effect that social media has on people is disgusting and alarming,” said Claussen. “We are addicted to scrolling through Instagram or Twitter and we see these beautiful, tan women or handsome, fit men and we think that in order to be accepted or validated by our peers, or even just by yourself, that we have to look like them.”
If you’re to scroll through your social media feed on any platform, you probably won’t see one single female selfie with a bare face. There are few exceptions, but women are trapped in the mindset that they need to be fake to be beautiful. If they aren’t already there, they are led to believe that. Lip fillers, fake eyelashes, breast implants, 80 layers of foundation; the list of what society has branded as “beautiful” goes on. This is not just the “truth” for women; men deal with self-criticism due to societal norms as well.
Junior Eddie Leon can attest to how men have superficial standards as well.
“A lot of the time, people have to show themselves off as something they’re not just to get more followers or fame. I think that’s one thing people want; the attention. They become a lie to themselves,” said Leon.
POLITICIANS
According to Mr. Rob Silva, it is not uncommon for politicians to be accused of bending the truth to achieve their political goals.
“I think, from an outsider’s perspective, what politicians are trying to do is to appease as many people as they can and still get something done,” said Silva “Politicians have an idea of what they want to accomplish and how to get as many people to support them as they can. They might tell one group of people one thing and they might adjust what they say to another group of people so they don’t offend anybody.”
Politicians have likely always bent the truth to benefit themselves. People will say that a little lie didn’t hurt anybody but when it comes to how our government will run, most people would like to know the full truth. That being said, how do we 100 percent know that what we’re being told is a complete truth? Lie detector tests cannot be trusted as they have been ruled unreliable to use in a court of law, so why should they be taken seriously anywhere else?
This misconception of the truth also has to do with the public not wanting to hear it. According to PsychologyToday.com, “People don’t want to hear the truth … It is decidedly better for politicians to tell people what makes them feel comfortable.”
There was an instance when Rudy Giuliani stated that “Truth isn’t truth.” He was probably addressing the fact that Trump’s counselor presented the public with what she called “half-truths”. (phychologytoday.com) There are so many instances where a person manipulates the truth they researched in a way that they can support whatever claim they may have.
Trump himself is definitely not the George Washington of presidents when it comes to truthfulness…not that the cherry tree story really happened that way. In relation to lying, Trump is in a class by himself. According to all reputable fact-checking services, President Trump lies on average about 12 times per day.
Of course, lying and bending the truth is not the sole domain of the right. Liberals are not above cherry-picking facts or spinning.
When former President Bill Clinton testified before a grand jury investigating him, he questioned what the word meant.
According to the testimony he said, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the—if he—if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”
However, he famously also said, “…did not have sexual relations with that woman…”. And depending on your definition of ‘sexual relations’, maybe he was telling the truth.
AI and CGI
With social media taking off in every direction, AI, CGI, and concepts like deepfake, it’s never been harder to decipher what the truth really is.
Using artificial intelligence, deepfakes are created by using existing images and videos onto source images, and videos. The scary part? You can’t tell the difference between, let us say, a deepfake clip of President Obama and a real one. You can check out Jordan Peele’s PSA as President Obama on YouTube.
Voice duplication technology is also available to pretty much anyone. The Natural Voices software is not yet perfected and is also held at thousands of dollars to purchase. Potential buyer James Fruchterman, chief executive of Benetech, stated that ”just like you can’t trust a photograph anymore; you won’t be able to trust a voice either.”
PHILOSOPHICAL SIDE
Truth has been analyzed by the most famous philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Thales of Miletus. They dissected the ways of the mind and what they saw throughout their daily lives.
Thales stated, “The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself”.
This can be tied to the core of the reason for writing this article. What does it take to find that truth and what is that truth? Lying about anything comes easily when it means protecting others and possibly oneself.
According to Adaya Goldblatt, lying to oneself is common in student life.
“We constantly tell ourselves, ‘I’ll start that sometime’ and that ‘sometime’ keeps getting pushed out further and further. It’s very hard to say that we’re actually telling the truth about ourselves because we keep telling ourselves that we’ll do something, we’ll finish something, but we never do,” said Goldblatt. “[When people get caught] they know they’re going to get in trouble so they try to lie their way out of it. They know that if they admit to that, they will get a zero but if they lie about it, they’re still going to get a zero. It’s a lose-lose situation.”
Sophomore Mackenzie Fears knows that one does keep the truth from others to salvage their feelings, although it’s not the right thing to do.
“I don’t think people should lie because it is better to know the truth rather than find it out later. I’m sure people do it often; I have done it to some of my best friends. I’ve regretted it because they have figured out the truth,” said Fears.
