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Can We Declare the Death of “Personal Truth”?

photograph of dictionary entry fro "truth"

According to Google Trends, the concepts of “your truth” and “speaking your truth” began a noticeable increase around the mid-2010s, likely as a response to the MeToo movement. At the time, the concept of speaking a personal truth was met with controversy. Just a few months ago actress Cate Blanchett ridiculed the concept, and now with the discussion of Prince Harry’s various “personal truths” it seems it’s made its way back in the news again. But surely if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that facts do matter and misinformation is a growing problem. Can we finally put an end to a concept that might be more harmful than helpful?

Before we consider the problems with the concept of personal truth and the idea of speaking one’s own truth, we should consider the uses and insights such a concept does provide. It isn’t a surprise that the concept of personal truth took on a new prominence in the wake of MeToo. The concept of personal truth emerged in response to a problem where women were not believed or taken seriously in their reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault, prompting a call for the public to “believe women.” It can be powerful to affirm “your” truth in the face of a skeptical world that refuses to take seriously your account as representing “the” truth. As Garance Franke-Ruta explains, “sometimes you know something is real and happened and is wrong, even if the world says it’s just the way things are.”

Oprah helped popularize the concept when she used it during the Golden Globes ceremony and her example can demonstrate another important aspect of the concept. Oprah had a difficult childhood, living in poverty and being abused by her family, and the notion that she was “destined for greatness” was considered to be “her” truth. Many feel a connection to such “personal truths” as they allow people who are rarely heard to tell their story and connect their individual experiences to systematic issues.

In philosophy, standpoint theory holds that an individual’s perspectives are shaped by their social experiences and that marginalized people have a unique perspective in light of their particular experiences of power relations.

Sandra Harding’s concept of “strong objectivity” holds that by focusing on the perspectives of those who are marginalized from knowledge production, we can produce more objective knowledge. Thus, by focusing on what many might very well call “their truths” (in other words what they claim to be true in contrast to those who are not marginalized) we might achieve greater objectivity.

On the other hand, even if we recognize the value of such experiential accounts and even if we recognize that there is a problem when people who are abused aren’t believed, it still doesn’t mean that there is any such thing as personal or subjective truth. There seems to be a growing attitude that people are entitled to believe whatever they want individually. But “personal truth” is a contradiction in terms. To understand why we can look to John Dewey’s “The Problem of Truth” which investigates truth not only as a logical concept but as a social one as well.

Truth is supposed to be authoritative. If I tell you something is my opinion, nothing follows from that. If, on the other hand, I state that my opinion is true, then the claim takes on an authority that forces others to evaluate for themselves whether they believe it is true or false. As Dewey explains, “The opposite of truth is not error, but lying, the willful misleading of others.” To represent things as they are

is to represent them in ways that maintain a common understanding; to misrepresent them is to injure—whether wilfully or no—the conditions of common understanding …understanding is a social necessity because it is a prerequisite of all community of action.

Dewey’s point is that truth developed as a social concept that became necessary for social groups to function. This is important because truth and accountability go hand in hand. When we represent something as the truth, we are making a public statement. To say that something is true means that the claim we are making can be assessed by anyone who might investigate it (with enough training and resources) – it means others can reproduce one’s results and corroborate one’s findings. Something held merely in private, on the other hand, has no truth value. As Dewey explains,

So far as a person’s way of feeling, observing and imagining and stating are not connected with social consequences, so far as they have no more to do with truth and falsity than his dreams and reveries. A man’s private affairs are his private affairs, and that is all there is to be said of them. Being nobody else’s business, it is absurd to regard them as either true or false.

While figuratively it can be beneficial to talk about personal truths, ethically it is far more problematic. While many may (rightfully) criticize cultural relativism, at least with cultural relativism, you still have public accountability because culture is the benchmark for truth. In the end, “truth” requires verification. We do not get to claim that something is true until it has survived empirical testing from an ever-growing community of fellow knowers. To claim that something is “true” prior to this, based on individual experience alone, is to take something that rightly belongs to the community. It negates the possibility of delusion or poor interpretation since no one gets to question it. Thus, asserting something to be true on one’s own account is anti-social.

If truth is meant to be publicly accessible and if you are expected to be accountable for things you claim to be true in light of this, then the concept of personal or private truth negates this. If something is true, then it is in light of evidence that extends beyond yourself. Thus, if something is true then there is nothing “personal” about it, and if it is merely personal, it can’t be “true.” Figurative language is nice, but people growing up today hearing about “personal” truths in the media are becoming increasingly confused about the nature of truth, evidence, and reasoning.

As we collectively grapple with growing problems like misinformation, polarization, and conspiracy theories, it is hypocritical to both condemn these things while simultaneously encouraging people to embrace their own personal truths. This notion erases the difference between what is true and what is delusional, and fails to recognize “truth” as a properly social and scientific value. It’s high time we let this concept die.

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The Ethics of Telling All: What’s at Stake in Memoir Writing?

Photograph of author Karl Ove Knausgard standing, holding a microphone, and reading from a book where the title "My Struggle" is visible

When Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard published the first volume of his My Struggle series in 2009 it was a startling commercial success, but also a personal disaster. Knausgaard’s infamous six-part series of autobiographical novels (titled Min Kamp in Norwegian) recounts the “banalities and humiliations” of his private life. While My Struggle is classified as a “novel”, it is described by Pacific Standard as a “barely-veiled but finely-rendered memoir”. After his first two fictional novels A Time for Everything (1998) and Out of This World (2004) received critical acclaim in Norway, Knausgaard found that he was “sick of fiction” and set out to write exhaustively about his own life. Consequently, My Struggle reveals his father’s fatal spiral into alcoholism, the failures of his first marriage, the boredom of fatherhood, the manic depression of his second wife, and much more.  “Autofiction” has become an increasingly mainstream mode of contemporary writing, but how authors should balance the ethical dilemma of exposing the private life of their friends and family remains unclear.

The first book of the My Struggle series, titled A Death in the Family, meticulously chronicles the slow, pitiful demise of Knausgaard’s alcoholic father. When Knausgaard first shared the manuscripts of his work with relatives, his father’s side of the family called it “verbal rape” and attempted a lawsuit to stop publication. Under the weight of bitter family and legal action, Knausgaard was forced to change the names of My Struggle and refers to the villainous alcoholic of the novel only as “father”. For Knausgaard, the suppression of true names weakened the goal of his novel: “to depict reality as it was.”

The issue with ‘reality’, however, is that everyone seems to have their own version. Part of the legal action against My Struggle were defamation claims disputing the circumstances surrounding the death of Knausgaard’s father. In another dispute over reality, Knausgaard’s first ex-wife recorded a radio documentary, titled Tonje’s Version, where she details the trauma of having her personal life publicly exposed. What’s striking about the documentary is Tonje’s point that her own memories came second to Knausgaard’s art. For Knausgaard, depicting reality meant his own reality. But, if memory is colored from our own perspective, how much claim can he have on what’s ‘true’ and not? Hari Kunzru writes in an article for The Guardian, “But he [Knausgaard] is, inevitably, an unreliable narrator. How could he not be? We live a life of many dinners, many haircuts, many nappy changes. You can’t narrate them all. You pick and choose. You (in the unlovely vernacular of our time) curate.”

Even when people accept the ‘truth’ presented by a memoir it can damage and destroy personal relationships. Knausgaard was married to his second wife, Linda, while writing My Struggle. After Linda read Knausgaard’s frank account of their marriage in his manuscript, she called him and said their relationship could never be romantic again. The media storm generated from the first few books of the series led to Linda having a nervous breakdown and divorcing Knausgaard. In an interview, Knausgaard admits to striking a Faustian deal with the publication of My Struggle saying, “I have actually sold my soul to the devil. That’s the way it feels. Because . . . I get such a huge reward.”, while “the people I wrote about get the hurt.” My Struggle is now an international bestseller and revered as one of the greatest literary accomplishments of the 21st century, yet on the final page of My Struggle Knausgaard admits “I will never forgive myself”. Critical acclaim and popular fame could not justify the damage done to Knausgaard and his family, but can anything positive emerge from the pain of writing such an unforgiving memoir?

Ashley Barnell, a contributor to The Conversation, writes in an essay, “By representing the conflicts and silences that families live with writers can introduce more diverse and honest accounts of family life into public culture.” From Instagram photos to popular humor people work hard to hide what hurts and feign happiness. As a collective unit, families are no exception. Norway found My Struggle particularly scandalous because of its violation of family privacy, which an article by The Guardian says was “profoundly shocking to the Lutheran sensibilities of a country that is less comfortable with public confessions than the Oprah-soaked anglophone world”. Knausgaard’s reckless exposition does not simply leave behind the outward facing mask individuals and families show the rest of the world, it shatters it all together and instead exposes deliberately, albeit painfully, the reality of one’s life.

Thematically speaking, shame is a core aspect of My Struggle. “Concealing what is shameful to you,” Knausgaard reflects, “will never lead to anything of value.” In a piece of literary criticism, Odile Heynders writes that shame in My Struggle, “. . . is connected to questions of humanness, humanity and humility. The capacity for shame makes the protagonist fragile, as it constitutes an acute state of sensitivity”. Advocates of literary fiction often cite its ability to increase one’s capacity for empathy. The shame and sensitivity of My Struggle, mixed with a self-deprecating humor, similarly accomplishes this feat by bringing readers to consider their own openness about pain they have both felt and delt. Barnell’s essay also points out that “The memoirist’s candid account of family struggles can destigmatize taboo topics – such as divorce, sexuality, and suicide.” In My Struggle, tough subjects like alcoholism, manic depression, existential dread, and broken relationships are not constructed neatly within the pages of fictional novel, but laid bare in their honest existence.

My Struggle, which has sold over half a million copies in Norway alone, may be helpful in encouraging more candid discussions of emotional pain. Yet, those whose private lives are thrust into the spotlight through nonfiction writing can be deeply disrupted. I think Knausgaard would argue that, to move past pain, it must be addressed in its most raw, authentic form. However, not everyone may be looking for such a public reconciliation. Authors working with the powerful mode of tell-all memoirs should consider the wellbeing of those immediately affected by publication and then the work’s potential benefit to the rest of the world.

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A Journalist Fakes His Own Death. Was His Decision Moral?

Image of Arkady Babchenko speaking with politicians.

Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko was allegedly murdered in Ukraine by hired killers working for Vladimir Putin’s regime. A picture of his body bathed in blood was publicized. Then, in an astonishing twist of events, 24 hours later Babchenko appeared in a news conference to inform that, indeed, he was alive, and it had all been a deception.

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Trusting Women and Epistemic Justice

An anonymous woman holding up a sign that says #MeToo

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

Over the past three months, public figures have been exposed as serial sexual harassers and perpetrators of sexual assault. Survivors of harassment and assault have raised new awareness of toxic masculinity and its effects in a short period of time.

However, as time goes on, supporters of the movement have been voicing rising concerns that something is bound to go awry. There is an undercurrent of worry that an untrustworthy individual will make an errant claim and thereby provide fodder for skeptics and bring the momentum of the movement to a halt. In response to this, it may seem like more vetting or investigation of the claims is the way forward. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be unfortunate to erode trust and belief in women’s stories in hopes of keeping the very momentum in service of hearing women’s voices?

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On Lying When There is No Truth

A photo of a Pinocchio doll.

One of St. Augustine’s enduring gifts to ethics has been Just War Theory. “Thou shalt not kill” comes with an asterisk and a long explanatory footnote.  Augustine did not leave us a Just Lie Theory. “Thou shalt not bear false witness” is almost absolute.

Augustine wrote about lying because, of course, everyone does it. And not just about little things. Even Augustine’s co-religionists were saying anything they could to win converts to their side. This was bad. Lying about faith and salvation degraded and debased Truth, the foundation of Augustine’s spiritual values. Augustine worried that a person converted by a lie had never accepted the Truth, and so might not really be saved.

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Searching for Truth in the Gaslight

Last week, I saw a group of people cross the street to avoid a guy wearing a Trump t-shirt.  On Facebook several days ago, my friend shared some pictures of a big pile of pink hats made by her knitting circle.  Her aunt, also a crafty type, asked her what they were.  When my friend replied that they were “pussy” hats for the Women’s March in L.A., her aunt replied, “Geez.  Sorry I asked.”  

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