The former Australian cricket coach Justin Langer spoke this week about a lunch he had with Sir Alex Ferguson, the legendary Manchester United football manager.
Within two minutes of meeting Ferguson looked him directly in the eye and said:
“Just remember son, truth works…always tell the truth”
Langer was so compelled by what Ferguson had to say that he missed a training session with his team so he could continue listening to him. And the core message he took away was the importance of truth. And as Langer said, its relevance goes way beyond successful sports coaching:
“It’s true, in life there is no greater advice. It came from Alex Ferguson, one of the greatest of all time but it could have come from my grandfather, it could have come from my grandmother…they are two of the most powerful words…truth works.”
Resisting post-truth
We live in a time where we need reminders of the importance of truth. The rise of popularism, and the swirling mass of mistrust created by the internet has created a context where politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson propagate their own form of truth and use simple narratives to bat away evidence.
So it is good this week that Boris Johnson’s persistent lies to the British people and its Parliament, were exposed by a forensic investigation by a Committee of elected MPs. And remember this was from a committee with a Conservative majority.
We should celebrate when truth is elevated above tribal politics. It is the opposite to what happened when Republicans in the US Senate collectively ignored the evidence and voted against Trump’s impeachment.
‘Ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource’
Truth is a bedrock of civilisation and healthy life. It provides a solid place from which to engage with others and build things which last. Truth serves the common good.
In contrast, lies and deceit undermine, weaken and destroy. They assist the self-serving and delay consequences, but not forever. Ultimately, lies do not work.
In 12 Rules for Life Jordan Peterson writes:
“To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being. Truth builds edifices that can stand a thousand years. Truth feeds and clothes the poor, and makes nations wealthy and safe. Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner, not an enemy. Truth makes the past truly past, and makes the best use of the future’s possibilities. Truth is the ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource. It’s the light in the darkness. See the truth. Tell the truth.”
‘’Objective truth exists’
At the core of George Orwell’s writing is his concern for basic truth.
The central theme of his most famous book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is one man’s desperate struggle to maintain belief in objective truth. It is vital that 2 + 2 = 4 even when The Party insists otherwise.
As biographer Dorian Lynskey puts it:
“Orwell’s fear that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world is the dark heart of Nineteen Eighty-Four…He always tried to tell the truth, and admired anyone who did likewise.”
Basic truth-telling
We need reminders about the basic importance of truth-telling because on a whole range of levels people are under such pressure to avoid telling the truth.
Our partners, our families and our children need us to be people who tell the truth.
Our workplaces flourish when people are willing to tell the truth and speak honestly.
And churches need people willing to tell the truth. Just imagine how much pain and suffering could have been avoided at Soul Survivor if the truth about Mike Pilavachi’s behaviour had been challenged and addressed 20 years ago? How many other safeguarding scandals would have been avoided by a simple commitment to tell the truth?
Truth works
We must all work toward cultures where nobody – whether Prime Minister, charismatic leaders or middle-managers – can get away with not telling the truth.
Objective truth exists and we all have a role to resist ‘post-truth’ culture.
Being honest can be difficult and challenging but it is the path to life. Our primary school teachers were right, honesty really is the best policy.
Reality is liberating. The truth really does set us free. Truth works.
Grace + Truth 
Great article. I view the position of populism and truth as more nuanced. It may distort truth, but it generally does so to harness the power of truth in another important way for the electorate; and that I think is part of its success.
As you know I work in migration policy. In the UK, over the last 25 years we have example after example of democratic politicians not telling the truth about immigration, in the sense of their words not matching their actions. Politicians that said nothing about immigration but then presided over an explosion of it, or who promised they were going to cut it when they either knew they could not achieve that or they had no intention of doing so.
The left-wing Mayor of London uses exactly the same language about immigration as a right-wing Conservative Home Secretary; they both say ‘I want a fair but firm immigration system’. Neither means remotely the same thing. Or is telling the truth. The former has no interest whatsoever in a firm policy. He supports a very liberal approach to immigration; cannot name a single immigration policy area where he would support firmness. And the latter, well, really struggles on many aspects of the fairness angle, to put it most charitably.
Populists on the other hand. They certainly do not tell the truth about the nuances of life that make policy so difficult and solutions so challenging. But when it comes to truthfulness in action they do much better; generally far better than non-populists. Precisely because their prescriptions are so simplistic.
Voters then see they meant what they said, and they did what they said. Trump: ‘Vote for me and I will build a wall.’ They vote for him and he starts to build a wall. Orban: ‘Vote for me and I will build a fence.’ They vote for him and he builds a fence. Salvini: ‘Vote for me and I will stop the ships docking.’ They vote for him and he stops the ships docking.
So yes, we should hold the populists to account for their truth-telling around what the situation really is, and their simplistic prescriptions for addressing it. But we should not underestimate the power of someone actually doing what they promised, particularly after years of more ‘truthful’ politicians, that we readers of this blog no doubt vote for, not doing that. In this sense, for populists, truth does indeed work.
If Boris Johnson had been seen to try to deliver on what he promised to the electorate – eg there was some tangible evidence of him wanting to progress levelling-up – he might have been able to get away with lying to parliament. Ultimately Boris Johnson’s failure was that – Brexit aside which was sort of already done anyway – he lied to the electorate as well, he did not even try to do what he promised. In that sense he was not a populist, or at least a very good one.
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Thanks Jonathan. As ever your comments really get me thinking – sometimes I go away and think about them and then realise I have not replied. So apologies and please keep commenting.
I guess you could say that people like Sadiq Khan are ‘left-wing populists’ in that they are only saying what is palatable to the left and are not willing to engage a proper debate about what immigration controls are fair and reasonable.
I had drafted a section referring to ‘both sides of the cultural wars’ but I ran out of time to give the piece the nuance that you refer to.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments! And if you ever fancy writing another guest post that would be great.
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I’m hoping someone one day will tell the truth about the pandemic and the vaccines Jon. There are very serious truths about it all that are not being told.
Johnson isn’t the only liar at the top of the tree. Someone needs to shake it and I’d have hoped the church would have been asking the awkward questions rather than taking the knee to government. There are many many more where Boris came from and they know it, hence the scapegoating and hoping we’ll settle for one scalp.
To try and seek those truths and ask questions results in vilification and persecution. Every Christian should be asking these questions and be willing to listen to those who ask them. In my experience this has been very far from the case.
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Lynne – I do not agree with the vaccine and pandemic conspiracies. I was working for the government at the time and the idea there was some big conspiracy is just nonsense. Of course things went wrong and could have been handled better – not least that our PM was not abiding by the rules he was announcing every day. I do not see him as a scapegoat – in fact there have been many others within his team who do fall into that category, who have carried the can and resigned (like his former press officer Allegra Stratton) basically because of the BJ’s Number 10 worked at the time.
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Being willing to stand up and tell the truth (on vaccines) even when your followers disagree. You’re in rare company. That reminded me of this from a few weeks back. (You follow the Ashes, I follow Trump vs De Santis.)
On the one side:
Republican voters: We hate vaccines!
DeSantis: Oh my God, you hate vaccines? You won’t believe this, but I hate them even more!! Other guys talk about leaving you alone not to take them, oh, but we need to go much further. I’m calling a grand jury to investigate this, we’re going to lock Pfizer up! It’s about time us conservatives started pushing back against these tyrants…
On the other side:
Trump: You know, I was boosted. The vaccine was a great accomplishment of my administration.
Republican voters: Boo! We hate vaccines!
Trump: Fine, whatever, do what you want, let’s talk about something else. Hey, did you guys see that women’s weightlifting thing?
Republican voters:
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sorry, it ends: Republican voters: cheers and laughter
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Many thanks for taking the time to reply Jon. I think I can see your eyes rolling at the thought up you have a nutcase commenting!
You are right to be concerned about the entire notion of ‘conspiracy theories’ especially given the apparent origins of the term which I’m sure you’re aware of. But please forgive me for saying it can also be a way around avoiding the evidence much of which is now coming from the government’s own statistics.
Watching a few videos you were sent and basing your decision perhaps partly on that does a disservice to those of us who, after a lifetime of service in the NHS (in my case community child health) and for whom vaccine and health advice was our daily round, have done due diligence and researched all this in depth.
We could spend all day going back and forth on it and I have no intention of doing that, but I would say please keep an open mind and ask yourself why we are all being asked to ‘look over here’ at the ridiculous Boris debacle (as if the majority didn’t know he was a liar) whilst being sure not to ‘look over there’ where some very disturbing stats, for example in excess deaths and vaccine-related injuries are flying under the radar unless you know where to look.
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Thank you, Jon. Having tracked back through the links in this blog, it reminds me of a TED talk (and a book by the speaker) : ‘Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (and how to fix it). The author is Tomas Chamorro – Tremuzic.
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thanks Alan. The thing is that BJ is incredibly clever and is also able to convey his ideas in a way that people connect with – so he has a lot of political ‘competence’. I think his problem is one of character and commitment. He is narcissistic and lazy – thinking he can lean on his communication skills and not bother about detail, consistency or the inconvenient matter of being truthful,
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He who hast not ever told an untruth cast the the first responce
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I like the re-working of scripture. I am not advocating the stoning of anyone – but I hope that Boris Johnson never again has any senior office as I think his track record in telling the truth is so poor.
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