“Facts are the enemy of truth.”--Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha
Facts are the enemy of Don Quixote's "truth", aka
his illusions. Yet he faced the Truth when vanquished by the Knight of the
White Moon, who some could well symbolically equate with reality. So, saddened to see his fantasies exposed as most
people initially are who see their comfortable myths, legends and false
self-images overturned, he dies before he can learn to move on. In the long run, he would have been happier after the
shock wore off, as most people are--as I have been. I believe that deep down we
are all, even the mentally unstable, never completely able to fool ourselves no
matter how deep within ourselves we bury reality. Mental illness is, basically, dissociation
from reality, which is what Don Quixote is doing when he declared facts to be
the enemy of “truth”.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn't have fantasies, fiction, flights
of fancy or to declare something to be beautiful; we just have to remember
that’s what they are—our subjective Truth, which isn’t at the mercy of facts.
When someone abuses the Truth, it diminishes the
possibility of meaningful communication, which is
why we need to study and refine what we mean by Truth--and what we don't mean
by it. Our biggest foible is taking charisma for Truth, and the repugnant for error. The first target of the
anarchist and the tyrant is the dictionary.
It’s the easiest way they can justify their moral double standard with
the ignorant and careless.
BTW, the quote comes from the play, Man of La Mancha and is found in Cervantes work, though I think it's a fair interpolation, since it condenses the nut of Don Quixote's issue.
There’s another quote from the play that is profound, but in
a way that I don’t think the modern playwright intended:
I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have
seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief. I
have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the
streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die
more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have
held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is,
yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words ... only their eyes
filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?" I do not think they asked why they were
dying, but why they had lived.
If we are correct here, then we know the answer to that
question.
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