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By Rev. A. Powell Davies D.D.
May 21, 1950
"It is error alone which needs
the support of government; truth can stand by itself." So wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1782. No matter what may happen to
truth--suppression, distortion, malicious misrepresentation--it can
stand by itself. Whatever requires the support of authority,
especially governmental authority, is surely error. If it were truth
it would maintain itself without assistance. For truth needs no
promotion, no safeguards and no defense. It can stand "by itself."
Is this what Jefferson meant? I doubt it. If he had known that these
particular words would be so widely and uncritically quoted, I think
he would have modified them. I think he would have said that "it is
error alone which needs the coercive support of government," and
that truth has no other requirement than to be made plain. Unless
this was his meaning, he was imputing to truth a sort of
almightiness which experience fails to confirm. In the ultimate
sense, no doubt, truth is indeed inviolable, for it stands for
reality against unreality, for what is against what is not, and
nothing can be done to falsify it. If it is true, for instance, that
the earth rotates upon its axis and that this is why we have the
alternation of night and day, it remains true quite irrespective of
who believes it, and will be just as true if everybody in the world
decides to doubt it. In this sense, it is quite correct that truth
can stand by itself.
But this is scarcely what Jefferson had in view. He was thinking of
the power of truth to get itself believed, which is another matter.
Otherwise, he would not have been so vigorously concerned for
freedom of expression--which he certainly was. He well knew--none
better--that unless this freedom was secured, truth could be put in
shackles. And he would have expected us to know it, also. He
intended his words about truth standing by itself to be understood
in an appropriate context. It would never have occurred to him that
truth could get along without defenders, without protagonists,
without friends.
What he had in mind was similar to Milton's famous saying: "truth is
strong, next to the Almighty, and needs no policies nor
stratagems...those are the shifts and defenses that error
uses....Whoever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open
encounter?" Yes, in a free and open encounter! For truth can very
easily be put to the worse if it is sufficiently bound and fettered.
Both Milton and Jefferson knew this, for they had every reason to
know it, and we must take them not literally but in the entire
historical context in which they lived and thought. Yet when we have
said this, we know that we have not quite bridged the gulf between
their times and ours. We are not as confident as they were. We have
seen techniques of falsification of which they had no inkling. We
have watched the truth perverted in such ingenious ways, and upon so
huge a scale, and so successfully, that we begin to fear that truth
does need protection, and the more vigorous the better. We even
wonder whether it may not need the protection of government.
What is the position of truth if all the media of communication--or
almost all--are at the disposal of error? The encounter can be free
and open--entirely so in the sense that truth is not being actively
suppressed--and yet falsehood can have its voice magnified a million
times while truth speaks only in a suffocated whisper. When these
are the conditions of the free and open encounter, which will win?
Truth or error? Which, that is to say, will be believed--believed by
the majority?
The nearest to this situation that Milton's imagination could have
taken him must have been a contest in which truth was badly
presented by inferior protagonists and all the clever people were on
the other side. He certainly must have known that the struggle of
truth with falsehood is not often fought out under ideal conditions.
We must suppose, therefore, that he believed that even when truth is
handicapped, its own intrinsic merit will carry it to triumph. We
must also suppose that Jefferson thought the same thing, for he
certainly had plenty of experience of how truth could be handicapped
in the arena of politics.
But what would either of these men have said if they had witnessed
the nazification of Germany in the 1930's? An entire policy was
based upon lies; yet, it seemed to succeed. And if it is pointed out
that the success was later turned to failure, how can we answer the
assertion that this was done not by the superiority of truth over
falsehood but by the superiority of American industrial production
over German resources? Was it a victory of truth or of overwhelming
force? What certainty is there that persuasive lying is not more
effective than veracity? How can we know that there is anything
automatic about the victories of truth?
Moreover, the matter is not as simple as that. Truth can be made to
serve the purposes of falsehood so completely that it might just as
well be false itself. Tennyson describes this in two fairly
well-known lines:
"That a lie which is all a lie
may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth
is a harder matter to fight."
And, of course, that is the kind of lie which has proved so
formidable in recent times. It has been so successful, indeed, that
some quite honest people have found themselves wondering whether it
might not be necessary to do a bit of lying themselves --in the
cause of truth. "We, also, must be ingenious," they have said to
themselves. "We must outwit our enemies and this may mean that we
must match them in prevarication and mendacity. We must be just as
plausible as they are; more plausible, if possible. We must refuse
to be placed at a disadvantage. For it has become obvious that
telling the simple truth is just naive. It makes us sheep in the
midst of wolves. We must learn to mix the false with the true, like
our opponents; and if it achieves an honest purpose, what does it
matter if we go them one better?"
In favor of this attitude, a good deal of testimony can be cited
from our wartime experience. Anyone who took the trouble to analyze
enemy propaganda, at that time, discovered quite painfully how
effective it was. The distortions were not always large distortions.
But they occurred day after day attached to one incident after
another and their cumulative effect was very great. The German
statesman, Otto von Bismarck had said many years before, "When you
want to fool the world, tell the truth." But although his successors
did not entirely neglect this maxim when it suited their purposes,
they felt they could improve upon it, and for a while they seemed to
succeed very well.
It is beyond all question a very effective kind of propaganda. No
single statement is made too strong to be plausible. The false
element is often just a matter of emphasis. But it all adds up. Part
of its effectiveness, of course, is that of the stage magician who
directs your attention away from what he is doing. You don't see him
putting the rabbit into the hat he is going to take it out of,
because he attracts your notice unexpectedly to something else.
I remember being at a dinner in New York City during the "America
First" period when this technique was being applied--by our enemies
and by their sympathizers in this country--to the United States
public opinion before we entered the Second World War. There were a
number of persons present with considerable experience of public
affairs, and also a prominent sociologist. The atmosphere was
extremely gloomy. How could truth prevail against the widespread and
ingenious falsehoods which had undermined the national conscience
and vitiated the people's awareness of the imminence of danger and
disaster? Everyone seemed doubtful that truth could prevail, and
some began to wonder whether allegiance to it was not a crippling
handicap. Perhaps our side should manipulate public opinion--start
some rumors and distort some facts? The final decision, of course,
went the other way, but I cannot deny that some of us were much
dismayed when we saw how frail the arguments seemed in support of
sticking to the truth.
More recently, we have seen this same technique--the distortion of
truth and the pressing of it into the service of falsehoods--even
more successfully carried out by the communists than it was by the
Nazis. Actual facts are made the basis of persistently misleading
propaganda. The real evils of American national life are so
presented that a considerable number even of Americans are persuaded
that we are beyond redemption. Meanwhile, attention is directed away
from the evils wrought by the Soviets--just as the stage magician
does it--so that the audience doesn't see the rabbit being put into
the hat. We are reminded again of Tennyson: "A lie which is all a
lie may be met and fought with outright, but a lie which is part a
truth is a harder matter to fight."
It is indeed. But it is not in the least necessary to go abroad to
prove it. Not all the ingenious lying comes from beyond the
IronCurtain. Nor even from communists within the democracies. Our
own native demagogues are just as skillful, and equally
unscrupulous. They can use the power of government--of a part of
it--to impress error upon the mind of the populace, and impress it
deeply. They can stay within the protection of government,
sheltering themselves with immunities and privileges. They can
succeed alarmingly. They can get themselves believed. Not until
disaster comes need it be seen by the people that these men betrayed
them.
And meanwhile, truth can stand too much alone. There can be too few
defenders. Too few who undertake the difficult, patient task of
discovering the truth and insisting upon telling it. It is not the
case--let us understand this, and clearly--that truth can stand by
itself, without support, without protagonists, without friends, and
be believed. Truth can stand by itself only in the sense that
whatever is true will remain true, whether it is believed or not. In
this sense, truth is inviolable, incorruptible, invincible. But this
is, as I said a while ago, an ultimate sense. If truth is to win its
victories in the immediate, practical arena of human affairs, it
must have its militant supporters. It is not enough to say that
truth is mighty and will prevail. Truth is mighty, and in the end
will prevail--but at what cost, and do we want to pay that cost? Is
it not necessary to make truth victorious here and now while destiny
is being decided? Is it not needful in all respects to make truth
the very breath we breathe in every part and portion of our national
life?
Again I say, truth needs friends. Not just spectators, standing
hopeful on the sidelines, repeating the ancient prophecies that
truth will always win. But protagonists--friends. People who enter
the battle and fight with all they've got! People who can be angry
when they hear the truth distorted! People who can call lies, lies!
Yes, but people whose anger never makes them careless. People who
are patient, thoughtful, thorough, who can separate facts from
falsities and weigh the import of what they read and hear. This, as
it seems to me, is now a desperate need, one which should extend us
to the uttermost.
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