Truth & hypocrisy

The old saying from Keats is that ‘truth is beauty, beauty truth’. I have come to the conclusion that this is untrue despite its beautiful symmetry.

Truth is efficacy. New ideas and knowledge that become truths do so because they give someone (s) an unfair advantage in achieving their goals, be they fame, fortune or freedom from persecution.

That is, truths are constructs just like all human thoughts. They simply provide useful shortcuts that enhance human ‘productivity’.

They can do this directly or indirectly, where a combination of obscure truths say in maths, provide mechanisms for useful engineering or economics.

Useless truths disappear. An example is that given by Kevin Rudd who said that the GFC was caused by greed. Correct but useless; greed always exists but GFCs don’t. Therefore Kevin was not expressing a useful truth.

Whence and therefore untruths do not matter. They may linger a while but because they provide no benefit they will ultimately die.

The moral to this story is that outrage at untruths (hypocrisy) is senseless unless they are the temporary cause of your lack of fame, fortune or whatever else turns you on.