SuperWeed

Truth vs Sincerity

This is a quote from a 1961 Iris Murdoch essay. I find it very provocative and wonder what other people think.

A simple-minded faith in science, together with the assumption that we are all rational and totally free, engenders a dangerous lack of curiosity about the real world, a failure to appreciate the difficulties of knowing it. We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy.

May 14th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL

One Response to “Truth vs Sincerity”

1
Charlotte:
May 15th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I think it’s true, whatever truth is. Interestingly, I was just having a conversation with someone about how the relentless obsession with Choosing To Do Whatever One Wants Regardless of the Consequences to Others leads people to, among other things, see those who make alternative choices as martyrs, wet-blankets, suckers, and weaklings. Of course, it is all murky, and we have no real idea what is truth and what is illusion, but to eschew the reality of interdependence in some misguided idea of self-fulfillment and self-realization is, well, self-centered.

Thanks for posting this.