Can Some Stories be More True Than Others?

The proposition that some stories can be more true than others may at first sound strange; indeed, stories are typically understood as imaginative and therefore false constructs. However, with a more flexible definition of truth, we can indeed see how some stories are better depictions of reality than others. To elaborate, recall that in my last blog post I stated that the world as we know it is divide into two parts: 

1) The world of objects and physical events; this is the world that natural and social sciences describe.

2) The world of actions and culture; this is the world that we actively live and participate in. 

While the mean of being "true" or "close to the truth" is intuitive in the world of objects, this is not the case in the world of actions and culture. Indeed, philosophers have long debated whether it is possible to assign truth to statements that prescribe what ought to be, in contrast to what is. Technical and metaphysical concerns aside, I believe that there is a practical way to define truth when talking about cultural objects such as stories, values, and narratives. The definition is as follows: 

    A cultural object is closer to the truth i.e. more real, if it perpetuates systems, actions, and values that contribute to the general well-being of the culture that objects inhabits. In contrast, a cultural object is further away from the truth if it causes oppression and suffering. 

This definition should be intuitive, since it is also how we defined truth for scientific theories, i.e. 

    A scientific theory is true i.e. more real, if it makes accurate predictions about the real world. 

In a sense, we can imagine that when societies adopt certain narratives, values, and beliefs, they are performing a great experiment on the validity of those narratives, values, and beliefs. Indeed, it is not for not reason that the US's society is sometimes referred to the "American Experiment." The experiment is not testing anything in the world of objects; rather, it is a test on the truth of the text of the United States Constitution and other funding documents in the world of actions, ideas, and narratives. 

In any case, note that this definition requires a well-defined idea of "well-being." While acknowledging that different people may have different pursuits in life, the objective reality that we argued for in the last essay forces us to conclude that the list of human goods is finite: in no world is the murder of innocents truly a human good. The exact boundaries of this well-being are not clear, and economists have long debated methods of its measurement; indeed, a measure of well-being is not only economic but includes a plurality of values (which may be contradictory) such as security, order, freedom, equality, and truth. However, it is also clear that some societies have higher levels of well-being than others. For example, no reasonable person would choose to live as an average citizen in North Korea instead of living as an average citizen in South Korea. 

Given this definition of Truth for cultural objects, let us consider how it can be applied to different cultural concepts. A clear example would be moral principles: a moral principle that is close to the truth when acted out consistently over a society, leads to a greater degree of prosperity and well-being. As a result of this definition, we expect that there would be some basic moral truths that occur across different cultures, given that the cultures that exist today are decently successful for having survived so long. And indeed, in all of the world's major religions, we see the moral dictum "do unto others as you would want others to do unto you" or its negative, less demanding form, "do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you." 

Now, what does it mean for a story to be true? This is more complicated to define considering that stories contain multiple messages and are open to interpretation. If we accept a post-structuralist approach to textual analysis, it would now be impossible for us to proceed since it is impossible to devise a true meaning to a particular story. However, given that we rejected the post-structuralist approach and argued for an objective reality not only in the realm of objects but also in the realm of ideas and actions, we will no assume that there exist interpretations of cultural stories that are more reasonable than others. Now, it is not a given that our language is even developed enough to describe the social patterns which the True interpretation (with a capital T) of a text; indeed, art, poetry, and literature exists precisely because their meaning cannot be captured completely by "plain language." Therefore, it may well be the case that multiple verbal narratives, perhaps seemingly contradictory, are needed to sufficiently describe a text. 

Returning to the idea of a "True" story; we may then say that a story is true if the plurality of reasonable interpretations of the story collectively helps a given culture prosper. To better understand what this means, let us consider an example: the Biblical story of Genesis, and the nature of humans as described in it. Two striking ideas emerge: first, that we are made in the image of God, and second, that it is in our nature to sin. There are not scientific descriptions of human psychology by any means, but they are true in the sense that we really ought to treat each other as if they have a divine spark within them, even though we can expect others, and ourselves, to act in petty and selfish ways. Although it is undeniable that the Middle Ages were a time of cruelty and oppression under Christianity's influence, it is also undeniable that the modern conception of human rights started with the proclaimed divine nature of men: John Locke justified men's natural rights as God-given, and Jefferson clearly wrote that we are "endowed by [our] Creator with certain inalienable rights." Moreover, the modern "Spirit of Capitalism" was, as described by Max Weber, the result of "the Protestant Ethic." 

It may be tempting, considering the success of Western Civilization in today's world, to declare the supremacy of classical reason and Judeo-Christian values; this would, however, be a mistake. Moreover, consider that much evil has been done as a result of jingoistic and supremacist views in general, I would like to devote a part of this blog to explain exactly why the statement "some narrative and aspect of cultures are better representations of reality than others" do not at all lead to the statement that "Western narrative and values are better than others." 

First, a supremacist world view disregards the cultural exchanges that have occurred historically between the West and the rest of the world: it was from the Arabs that we inherited algebra and the decimal system, from the Chinese that we have paper and gunpowder, and from the Egyptians Babylonians that we derive our calendar and system of time-keeping. Moreover, the myths that we find in the Bible and the way that we interpret them are by no means uniquely Western creations. The myths themselves may be traced to Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman heritages, while Theology in the Middle Ages was significantly influenced by the writing of Plato and Aristotle, whose writings were preserved and reinterpreted by scholars in Islamic Caliphates before being reintroduced in Europe. Therefore, what we call "Western Civilization" today should perhaps instead be interpreted as a product of multiple civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean, on the Arab peninsula, and in central, south, and east Asia.

Second, Western Civilization is by no means perfect and many of its most dominant stories and narrative have oppressive elements which have been used to justify atrocities. Clear examples of this include the subjugation of women to men described in religious texts, as well as the sinful nature of homosexuality. Just because something is successful does not mean it is without fault; through the use of reason we should be able to examine our shared heritage critically, and in that process write better stories. This is to say, a version of the Bible without misogyny, homophobia, and genocide would have been a text that better described the reality of actions and ideas. 

Finally, the West has only been in a dominant position in world history for a few hundred years. The progress that was made in that time is a good indicator that the narratives of the transcendental power of reasons and the divine individual contain elements of moral truth. However, a few hundred years is simply too short in the whole picture of human history to make a convincing argument for the absolute validity of these values. Although I personally believe it to be unlikely, it may well be the case that the propagation of democracy, secularism, free speech and government, property rights, rule of law, human rights, universal education and healthcare, labor and consumer protections, liberalism, and human emancipation, in general, is a fluke or a small perturbation in the ocean of human history, and that ignorance suffering and justice is our natural state. Moreover, and this is a more likely case, it very likely true that there are elements from other cultures that can make western society better.

In short, an understanding of the origin and problems of Western Civilization mixed with a good dose of intellectual humility gives us solid reasons to reject nationalist ideologies. While reason does not allow us to make judgments on subjects as complex as entire cultures and world views, it may allow space to make judgments on narrow, contained narratives and values. For example, we may take a specific text from a culture, and say that "although this film accurately describes the horrors of war and helps create a peaceful society, it has misogynistic portrayals of women and help perpetuate gender inequality." It is from here that we access the idea that "representation matters;" that it is important that people, cultures, and values be represented in certain ways in the dominant texts of our cultures. 

In particular, representation should be concerned with truth not in the world of objects, but rather in the world of ideas and actions. It is only with the latter type of truth that the narratives that we tell ourselves can help achieve justice and property in our current world. We now explore this idea with a concrete example: the critically acclaimed Broadway Show Hamilton. In Hamilton, the character Aaron Burr is portrayed by the Black actor Leslie Odom Jr. If we were concerned with the world of objects i.e. in this case the world of historical truth, then the casting of a Black actor for a well-known historical figure would decrease the quality of the production by pushing it further from the truth. However, if we were instead preoccupied with truth in the realm of ideas and actions, if we want to represent American society as it is today, and if we want to celebrate the values of diversity, inclusion, and equality, then the choice of casting a Black actor for a principle role was undoubtedly good. 

Put another way, the text "Hamilton" is interpreted by the audience not simply as a play, but rather as a cultural object in today's America; it would be wrong to say that "there is nothing outside of the text," as some post-structuralists argue. Any decently educated American would not see Leslie Odom Jr. and think "Aaron Burr was black," rather, we hope that they will see him and think of him as a positive icon representing Black people in general, as well as recognize the diversity of contemporary America. When we put minority character in major instead of tokenistic roles in historically white narratives, we may well be distorting the truth in the reality of objects, but we are approaching the truth in the reality of ideas and actions but representing our diverse society as it is, and by allowing our audiences to construct messages which helps them recognize that. This is not to say that truth in the world of objects does not matter, indeed, texts that accurately describe the reality of ideas and actions do also often accurately describe the reality of objects; this is simply to say that texts which do not describe the reality of objects may well be able to describe the reality of actions and ideas (religious texts and myths, for example). 

Moreover, minority representation is not simply a matter of truth, but also a matter of justice. The fact that we live in a predominantly white society filled with stories that originated in more patriarchal times necessitates the fact that most of the characters in these stories are white and male; if we insisted on authenticity then a clear consequence would be that minority and female actors will see no representation in major roles. By sacrificing authenticity we can help achieve social justice when minorities are represented proportionally to their populations. If we truly believe that the spirit of our age ought to be one of diversity and inclusion, then for the texts of our age to embody that spirit would naturally make them more accurate representations of the reality of our time (within the realm of action). 

Finally, there is one more type of story that I would like to discuss that I believe is especially needed, and especially "real" for the 21st century - stories of either multiculturalism (harmony between cultures) or cultural conflicts (discord between cultures). This is since the 21st century and beyond would likely be defined by globalization and the clash and mergers of cultures that follow. This is a unique stage in human history, and it is likely that many past truths may no longer be able to guide us forward. An artistic examination of the interactions between different cultures and their interactions is therefore imperative. 

An example of such a text would be the movie "Crazy Rich Asians," it is one of the few recent major movies to feature Asian American leads, and as an Asian person, I was pleasantly surprised by the accurate depictions of more traditional Asian family norms. The way that the characters navigated these rigid norms in pursuit of the more Western trope of "true love," describes a reality that more and more people will live through as Asian economies continue to develop and as their cultures continue to absorb Western media and ideas. In this sense, we see exactly how although the story is technically false in the sense it is imaginary, it contains truth in the sense that it is representative of the real experiences of real people and can help us see truth in the world of actions. 

In summary, we described in the first essay our rejection of post-structuralist theories of textual interpretation in favor of a more structuralist one that accepts the existence of objective reality. We then extended this theoretical framework to create a definition for how "true" stories and narratives can be, as well as how certain aspects of certain cultures can be better than others. Applying this definition, we argue that the texts that lay at the foundation of Western civilization contain immense value, although they do also contain some faults as well. Finally, we argued that as persons who live in a unique and historical point of human history, it is time for us to start constructing new narratives and stories for the ages to come, ages that are radically different from our collective pasts. In this sense, the purpose of textual analysis is not simply to uncover the oppressive elements within texts that perpetuate injustice as they have done so for centuries past, but also to discover the eternal wisdom of our ancestors, which with minor amendments we can use to guide us and our societies towards tomorrow's world.