[an update to this essay:
There, the examples cited were mostly political and snarky,
in line with the comic coinage “truthiness” itself. But there are many genuine questions concerning the penumbra
of truth. Here are some
examples, from the years before Stephen Colbert was in nappies. ]
~
“Is she mixed up with the Consular
people?”
“Oh, no. Her work lies among the poor.”
“Oh, no. Her work lies among the poor.”
This was a side-slip into truth.
The mother of Adrian was employed in a laundry.
-- H. H. Munro, “Adrian” (1911), in The
Short Stories of Saki (1904ff), p. 157
~
“That’s only true with reservations.
And the reservations are the most important part.”
--Aldous Huxley, Those Barren
Leaves (1925), p. 377
~
Re Baroque art:
It is not real cloud or real sun,
and does not pretend to be; but it does, as it were, pretend to pretend. It
is theatrical; but a theatrical performance is not a falsehood, for it does not
profess to be a fact.
-- G.K. Chesterton, The Resurrection
of Rome (1930)
Despite the paradoxical sound of the phrase, people do
indeed often pretend to pretend.
As, when Daddy mimics a bear or a pirate, to amuse the children.
~
So much for pinchbeck truth. As for the pure gold:
Something is really true; true in
every aspect and from every
angle; true from the four quarters
of the sky; true by the three
dimensions of the Trinity. We turn
from it and it does not vanish; we analyze it and it does not dissolve.
-- G.K. Chesterton, The Resurrection
of Rome (1930)
Granted, the things he has in mind are such as people like
Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins
would actually hold to be false.
~
For further essays on truth, see:
For truth’s truthitudinal poor-relation, these posts:
(Those are the funny ones.)
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