The Truth Will Set Us Free: a Reflection and Response

(a short essay in response to my presentation at the Concerned Philosophers for Peace)

One of the greatest aspects of philosophy and philosophical thinking is that it’s always evolving; taking on new forms as information and perspectives grow and change, leading us toward fresh and more dynamic ways of interpreting ourselves, our lives, and our realities. Consequently, this can also be one of philosophy’s most frustrating aspects, as it is always bringing a jackhammer to the ground on which we stand. There is always more to learn in any and every direction one looks; always more writers and thinkers to read, more inquiries and advocates of the devil to consider, and deeper meanings and understandings to synthesize. Philosophy asks of us to accept a fluid and flexible position, even in our most passionate of convictions, which ultimately buttresses our improvement as thinkers, orators, and debaters, enhancing our own perspectives by allowing our minds to change. It’s a journey toward an endless horizon over a vast ocean; a journey we chart from the ships of our minds, propelled by the winds of our spirits behind the sails.

I recently had the great honor of attending the Concerned Philosopher’s for Peace conference, and, as expected, the weekend was complete with lively and intense conversation, invigorating debate, and endless opportunities to learn and make connections. I was one of only a few people who did not hold a PhD, and I was the only person pursuing higher education that isn’t directly related to academic philosophy. It was a bit of hard work and some luck that I ended up in the basement of that hotel, debating some of the world’s most significant matters as they relate to war and peace with such accomplished people, and I was honored to engage with and learn from the experiences and insights of those around me. We had discussions ranging from the impact of war on the environment, concerns and hopes relating to artificial intelligence on the battlefield, propaganda and free speech, and even a whole panel on parallels in pop-culture to notions of violence, peace, technology, and morality in the context of war. Where I felt it was appropriate, I offered food for thought in regards to the military industrial complex and the U.S. intelligence apparatus, because how can we talk about war and the impact of other conflicts on the environment if we are not honest about how and why war starts, or why countries fall apart and millions of refugees are forced to flee to survive? I’d argue that we can’t.

I chose to test my ideas about the theory of the natural law and its relationship to human freedom through my presentation, and I drew directly from the roots of the United States of America by looking at the Declaration of Independence. There is a particular way to “do” academic philosophy; certain implied rules and accepted norms that often undergird general expectations, especially as it comes to journals and conference presentations. An important standard is using the work of people who have already published their thoughts and arguments when crafting your own. Working directly from source documents is generally frowned upon, because there is so much more to consider after the fact. We pay our respects where they are due, and if we overstep, we better have a good reason for doing so.

Well, given the current climate of everything, I daresay if there is ever a time to be bold, it is now.

I see a profound vision in the language of the Declaration, and from my perspective on our nation and the world today, it is a vision that is not widely understood. There are other documents throughout history that contain similar notions, and seek to uphold the rights and dignities of human beings in their various ways, but for a country whose federal government has caused far more harm to the world today than any of us are truly aware of, it seems highly necessary that we evolve our ethical understandings and recalibrate our moral compasses, particularly in the United States. Plus, this is the country in which I live and was raised, so while my concerns may be for the world at large, it is most appropriate that I approach them through the context in which I understand it.

Many profound thinkers and writers have come and gone before me, and have preached the same message in their own unique ways. It’s a message I have come to understand as fundamental to human peace and flourishing, and if time wasn’t so of the essence, I’d write down all of their names and all of their teachings, and we’d possibly have an essential text on the ultimate truth of the universe. I mean no disrespect by going straight for the source documents for my argument; indeed, it is in part because of the work of so many people that I am where and who I am today. Every once in a while, however, I think it’s important for all of us to recall the roots of history in order to understand the present and chart a better course for the future, and this can mean going back to the foundations. Though this work, my sole intention is to espouse more meaning, more passion, and more purpose into a shared vision of peace, liberty, and justice for all human beings, and my actions in this pursuit are the steward of my deepest reverence for all who have used their voices and their lives to speak to this vision.

You never know how someone is going to react when you talk about the natural law. Some people find it agreeable but many don’t, and it’s most often through a theological lens that a person is on one side of the argument or the other. This is, of course, the most obvious difficulty with the theory of the natural law: its intractable relationship to the notion of God. “The laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” as the Declaration reads. The G word is avoided like the plague in the deeper circles of academic philosophy, but it has also come to invoke all sorts of religious trauma and anger in people generally, making it difficult to convince anyone to follow the white rabbit far enough to see the natural law in a secular light, where the vision isn’t one of dogma or pedagogy but of enlightened principles and grounded passions that can be expressed and shared unconditionally.

I do recognize that I’m encroaching on territory which is massive in its history of thought and debate, and I do not mean to discount the work of more experienced and researched scholars, but, again, in the spirit of being bold…

First, we need to establish what we are talking about when we use the term “God.” No matter your religious upbringing and affiliation or lack thereof, no matter your current spiritual outlook on the world or how you understand your faith, there is truth to the universe, and this truth is necessary to the existence of anything and everything. Necessary truths are those principles of reality which are universal and unbreakable. They are true regardless of our understanding of them, or the language we use to describe them. I use gravity as an example. We didn’t have a word for it prior to Newton, but naming it and studying it to the point of mathematical equations which eventually put satellites into orbit around the globe didn’t fundamentally change what it was, is, and would always be. We call it gravity, but our understanding of it and the language we use to describe it holds no bearing on the truth of its function in reality. In fact, at the quantum level of the universe, we don’t know how gravity works, and yet we still walk upon the earth every day, use Newton’s equations, and talk about it to our kids when they ask what makes the world go ‘round. Gravity, the universal laws of physics and mathematics, the inevitability of death — all of these are necessary truths, among select others. When we talk about God, we’re talking about the Necessary Truth, that which is all-encompassing of the universe and its multitude of truths, and which inherently goes beyond the reaches of any human language.

I’ve accepted that there will always be philosophical pushback on this, but here I stand my ground. Call it God, Source, Spirit, the Divine, Brahman, Tao, Yahweh — call it anything, and it doesn’t change what it is. It’s why we are told that God is ineffable, that the Tao is nameless, that Yahweh is not a name meant for articulation, and why Buddhist philosophy teaches that the Ultimate Truth is silent. Of course, a classic counterargument is to say that nothing created the universe. There is no God. There is no Creator. But if it’s true that the universe spontaneously arose from nothing, then this itself is the Necessary Truth. No matter the semantic framework or subjective understanding, there is a Truth which remains unchanged, permeating everything from the mysterious quantum fields to the cosmic skies billions of lightyears away.

Taking this into consideration and returning to the theory of the natural law, what we’re really talking about is the theory of necessary truths, which do include moral and ethical truths, though here is where things get much less black and white. Beyond just the physical aspects of our reality, there are the social ones, especially for creatures such as ourselves who depend on each other for survival. When the American revolutionaries set out to start their own independent nation, most of them only had wealthy white men in mind. Nonetheless, they put forth ideas about human rights and dignity, individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which would foment a long-stretched paradigm shift which I’d argue we are still living through today. One primary notion comes forth in all of this: freedom.

But what does it really mean to be free?

The U.S. loves to credit itself as being “the land of the free,” and some of us wear this proudly upon our chests like a badge of honor. The idea that freedom is something completely individualized and uninhibited, however, is not only false, it actually further entrenches the systems of oppression which affect us all. Not only are our freedoms — the choices we have available to us throughout our lives — constrained by universal physical truths, they are also constrained by the truth of morality and human will. Morality isn’t coded into the universe in the same way that the laws of physics are, but if there is one scientific law that we might use to understand it, I argue it’s Newton’s Third Law of Motion: that actions create reactions.

Morality is tricky, because any action I take which may be morally justified may also cause pain to another, even indirectly, in which case this other may justifiably condemn my action as morally wrong. The following is a big claim that would need a whole book in its own right, but its conclusion is pertinent to this conversation: morality is relative and subjective. We can say that killing human beings is morally wrong, but what about when they are trying to kill you? We can say that it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings, but what about the person who won’t get a heart transplant as determined by the hospital ethics committee when making a decision based on available resources? What constitutes an objective moral good is perhaps the second most debated subject in philosophical history, just behind the subject of the Divine, and in the continued spirit of boldness I offer that perhaps the objective moral truth is simply that there is no objective moral truth. If this is the case and morality is entirely subjective, then it’s up to us to come together and decide on what kind of world we want to live in, how we are going to treat each other, and the kind of future we want to build through our actions in the present. Freedom is a call to action for each and all of us to live our lives in service of the freedoms of others, because it is ultimately up to us to liberate ourselves. We are our own creators, and our own saviors. The prophets of history that sacrificed their lives to teach us such wisdom want us to know the truth of our own agencies in this world, because it is our agency, and that alone, which is our key to liberation.

This is precisely the beauty of the vision behind the Declaration of Independence: through a foundation set in the theory of necessary truths, it recognizes human liberty as a fundamental aspect to human peace and enshrines it as an ultimate good which human will and cooperation (democracy and governed consent) can preserve and protect. One major pushback I received at the conference was the concern that my argument was erring on the edge of metaphysical, creating a rift in its conclusion. I considered this, and supposed the idea of a nameless truth that is the ultimate reason for all things in existence does get a little mystical, but after some further reflection, I’ve decided it isn’t metaphysical or mystical at all, because I’m talking about the fundamental functions and practicalities of the shared, co-created reality which we call the world.

When we make choices and then act on them, whether good or bad and whether with righteous or malicious intent, there will be consequences which reverberate into the world around us. They will affect more than just ourselves. They will affect other people and their choices, which will in turn affect others and theirs, and so and so forth until all the world has been touched by something seemingly so small and inconsequential. In our interconnected world, I could’ve spoken to these principals from almost any philosophical angle, but I chose to do so through an Americanized lens because I’m wary of the trajectory of our nation, and understanding the power it holds on much of the rest of the world, I’m wary for it, too.

The whole point of my work here is to demonstrate that the United States, in spite of its past flaws and current failings, has the bones to be a true force for good in this world. In this context, I’m talking about the good which I’d argue we’d all agree is good: the liberation of human kind from suffering and oppression, the freedom of all people to be who they are and live their lives how they see fit, the liberty to love, explore, experience, know pain, learn hard lessons, grow wise, know joy, find peace, and create endlessly beautiful and abundant lives imbued with the deepest senses of meaning and purpose in the whole of the cosmos. Indeed, is this not the vision of the kingdom of God, of Heaven? And if it’s all up to us to decide how it’s going to be, why would we choose to live in hell instead?

This isn’t metaphysical. This is reality. Our reality. The reality of moral subjectivity, actions and consequences; the reality of gravity and heartbreak, mathematics and ecstasy, laws and possibilities. It’s up to us to come together and hold each other’s dignities as the sacred gifts that they are. It’s up to us to recognize the interconnectedness of all things, including ourselves, and be willing participants in the future peace, stability, and prosperity of the world. It’s a call to action, and by answering it, we are answering a divine call to uphold the greatest potential for humankind.

And maybe, just maybe, we get closer to that vision of peace, liberty, and justice for all human beings by daring to be bold in our pursuit of the truth.