It occurred to me within the past few days that people have a hard time discerning between defending truth and defending people. It’s always important to defend the truth, regardless of who is on the other end of it. Imagine that a politician you despise was accused of lining up and shooting everyone on your street one by one, and you knew that not to be true. Would you correct the record, or would you stay silent because of your disdain, or out of fears that people would accuse you of defending him? It doesn’t matter the consequences, you must always defend the truth. In a state of untruth, our society is prone to misinformation, division, undermining of democracy, erosion of trust and morality, demoralization, confusion, apathy, loss of critical thinking, and manipulation by bad faith actors over who and what is to be trusted/not trusted. Loss of truth is loss of safety. We cannot cultivate the world we strive to live in—with any semblance of stability—without taking fearless risks to protect truth.
See Tweet