<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Originally posted by KoshN
To me, it made the "experts" look empty. They were each willing to overlook the truth in order to further their own hypothesis. Maybe through all the flapping of their gums, they'd actually convinced themselves that the crap they were spouting was "the truth" ??? Naah, I don't think so. Even they weren't that deluded.
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In response to a lot of people's comments about truth. There is no such thing. 20 people can witness the same thing but all will have a different interpretation or memory. They all believe that their own interpretation is the "truth", But for one person to be telling the truth everyone else must be lying. Often when people talk about events they end up agreeing, even if they didn't see the same thing. Pschological experiments have shown that people, when presented with evidence of things they did as a child (which they never did of course) such as a hot air balloon ride, after time they began to recall events such as the feel of the balloon as it took off.
Also, in Bosnia, school children are being taught history which excludes recent atrocities. They will grow up to believe that these things didn't happen. This happens all the time. Truth is made of belief and opinion. For those people who were commenting on Sheridan, they absolutely believed what they were saying. We as viewers of the series had an insight into the characters that no-one else could possibly have. When looking at history, you take what records you have and put your own interpretation on them to form a conclusion.
If there were only one truth then there would be no war or disagreement, but everybody believes they know the truth. Remember the interrogator who took in Sheridan during the civil war? He said, "truth is fluid, truth is transitory". He was right. There's a lot of important information in his words, even thoug he's the enemy. 60 years ago, Germans were the enemy of Britain, the US, etc. Are they still? No, because the truth is fluid, transitory. 100 years ago, black people were slaves, or considered animals. Is this stll the truth? The vorlons were good and the shadows were bad in the first couple of seasons of B5. We based this on what we knew, but we were wrong, they were no better or worse than one another (at least in my opinion). Is this any different from what the two historians did? Is it any different from what any historian does?
The world remakes itself around our eyes everyday.
George Orwell's 1984, is an amazing book to see how truth can be changed, and easily. jms has definitely read it and has definitely been inspired by it. If you read it (or reread it as the case may be) I think you'll understand just how complicated "truth" is.
Is everything I've said the truth, well, I believe it is....
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