What Is The Truth?

What does the shit that went down on Capitol Hill, the truth and safety pins have in common? I’m glad you asked.

When I started up my blog again, I had no intention of talking about politics. I just wanted to tell stories about life. And maybe some cross cultural ha-has about being a foreigner in Germany. But there’s no bigger story at the moment than this Trumpian last week. So here we go.

But what is the story exactly?

When Capitol Hill got stormed, the story was that Trump spread lies to actively incite a mob to anarchy. But he’s been doing it for four years. That’s not news. Last week was the worst version of it for sure, but there’s nothing new here.

The next story I kept hearing was that if the protestors/terrorists were POC they would have been shot. I read a Black Lives Matter post saying that that’s the last thing POC need to hear right now. They know. They don’t need more shock and outrage from the rest of us now that we’re finally confronted with their reality. 

And if that’s not the story, then the story definitely isn’t memes about the Duck Dynasty invading. Or that the guy wearing the horn helmet was copying some look by a queen on Drag Race.

I think the story is that one man has shown that the democratic process in the world’s most famous and influential democracy can be dismantled in the space of one term. And thanks to the cultural influence of the States, what happened last week is a green light for despots everywhere. Well if Trump did that in America…?

The next story was Trump has been de-platformed. “De-platformed.” Seems like every time you turn around, there’s a new term to learn. Anyway, so why de-platform him now? He’s been doing the same thing for four years. This time, Twitter, Facebook, and all the news channels say that he crossed a line. 

Ok, but what’s the line? It’s not the political, physical and mental wellbeing of the planet. This is just my suspicion, but I think the line was the share price. If social media had given Trump a soapbox a moment longer, they would have gone down with him in the court of public opinion.

They dropped their best one man advertising campaign ever, because profits would be threatened. That’s the line.

Fingers crossed on the 25th amendment and a possible impeachment. But Trump is just the most recent example of the complete absence, or destruction, of the truth. 

Truth, what a weird concept. With everyone arguing about their version of it, it prompted me to go and look up the word in the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster truth is: a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.

“Accepted as true” That’s the point. Most of what we see on our screens these days is people arguing over my truth vs your truth. And I’m tired of feeling like a powerless spectator watching a game of psychotic alpha male vs psychotic alpha male. And their supporters. Especially when the final score is all of us, and the truth, losing. Again.

So if we can’t agree on what truth is, could we agree on what truth does? 

What about defining the truth as, “the thing that does the most amount of good for the most amount of people.” Interesting right? That’s something we all can innately feel.

Which brings us to safety pins. Years ago, I was lucky enough to see Vivienne Westwood speak at a conference. If you don’t know her, she’s the designer who invented punk and many other fashion movements. It was like listening to your brilliant black sheep aunty talk about life. The aunt that one that no one else in the family wants you to hang out with.

Anyway, turns out that she’s not a fashion designer. In her words, “I’m a political activist, and I use clothes as my medium.” I don’t remember what the topic of the event was. And neither did she. Vivienne hijacked it to talk about saving the environment, of which she is a huge campaigner.

She was truly inspirational. Perhaps the most so when she did a Q&A at the end. One woman asked Vivienne how she could help. That she wanted to do something not just send money. But that she also worked in middle management, had three kids and couldn’t go out to the Antarctic or chain herself to a tree. 

Vivienne’s answer stunned us all. She said, “Oh, it’s easy. Just find something in your local neighborhood that you know is bullshit and protest that. Doesn’t matter what it is, it’ll save the environment.” Off the crowd’s silence she explained.

She said that the people who are destroying the environment are the same people closing down a playground in your neighborhood or getting a building zoned that everyone knows shouldn’t be there. And she said if it isn’t the same person, then they go to the same golf club. As Aunt Vivienne put it, “You kick them in the balls here, you save the environment over there.”

She encouraged everyone to find even the smallest thing out there that you know is wrong, and fix it.

In the late 1970s, Vivienne saw how rotten the establishment was in the UK. She wanted to destroy it all and start again. She set out to make a wearable symbol of destruction, something so easy to copy that everyone could make it. So she ripped up some t-shirts, put them back together with safety pins, stuck them in her shop window, and punk was born. And copied in bedrooms by people all over the world for the next fifty years.

Bigger than that, she took something she knew was wrong and dragged it back to the truth. The thing that would do the most amount of good for the most amount of people. 

The Czech people have a saying, “Put out the fire that’s closest to you”. So what if the real story about last week is the next story we hear? About what ordinary people like you and me we’re inspired to do with what happened. What small thing we saw in our world that we know is wrong. And what we did to drag it, kicking and screaming, back to the truth.

That’s the story I want to read.