Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.

Once again at Starbucks, sans the smear of ash in the sign of the cross on my forehead. I do not belong to the Catholic community. I was not raised to believe in the Catholic church or its tenets, a shear accident of birth. The season of lent is something I learned later as an adult.

Communion in my case amounts to receiving a cup of dark roast from Katie a Barista at this local Starbucks. I take the usual place at the back of the room, joined by Tom and Dave who are seated within voice range. I enjoy the warmth and flavor of a cup of coffee. “That” is communion with myself, with others, and with the sun, earth, and sky which are concentrated in the warmth and flavor, – satisfying beyond description to my body. I take communion daily.

I made sure last night, to avoid viewing the televised State of the Union speech which was delivered to Congress by the President. The chamber was bound to be charged with animosity, an atmosphere primed for the barbarism that the president and his party often displays. I decided to turn my attention elsewhere. I can learn details later, after the fact. I’d like to stay on task with my life, and to the extent possible, avoid the maelstrom of contamination which is the aim of lies, and the drumbeat of propaganda. I hope to avoid becoming a barbarian myself.

Six or seven of us enjoyed a Zoom discussion about the intersection between politics and epistemology. The participants are old friends and thus enjoy the benefit of speaking freely.  A question was posed about the shift in understanding represented by “postmodern” thought on the topic of “truth.”

“What is truth” is a very old question. The question was posed by Pontius Pilate as he prepared to deliver a guilty verdict, as Roman governors were wont to do. (Jesus declined to give any answer.) It is a good question, one that remains open for good reason. No matter what you’d manage to offer as your answer, your words are bound to be inadequate.

That is exactly what I felt last night. Verbally stumbling, I offered an answer based upon the postmodern insight that language and truth is a social construct. Here is a more concise response to “What is truth?” from The Ego and His Own by Max Stirner, published in 1844.

As long as you believe in the truth,
you do not believe in yourself,
and you are a – servant, a religious person.

You alone are the truth, or rather,
you are more than the truth,
which is nothing at all before you.

You too do assuredly ask about the truth,
you too do assuredly ‘criticize’,
but you do not ask about a ‘higher truth’ – namely, one that
should be higher than you
– nor criticize
according to the criterion of such a truth.

You address yourself to thoughts and notions,
as you do to the appearances of things,
only for the purpose
of making them palatable to you,
enjoyable to you, and become their owner:

you want only to subdue them and become their owner,
you want to orient yourself and feel at home in them,
and you find them true, or see them in their true light,
when they can no longer slip away from you,
no longer have any unseized
or uncomprehended place,
or when they are right for you,
when they are your property.

If afterward
they become heavier again,
if they wriggle themselves out of your power again,
then that is just their untruth
– namely, your impotence.

Your impotence
is their power, your humility their greatness.

Their truth, therefore,
is you,
or is the nothing
that you are for them
and in which they dissolve:
their truth is their nullity.

Stirner (page 353-54)

There’s no doubt in my mind – such as this description of what we mean, of what we have in mind when we make an issue of “the truth” or when we claim that we care about truth, is why postmodern thought terrifies. This philosophizing rips away the mask, the all-to-human reflex to hide behind the truth. Stirner writes bluntly that “the truth” is none other what what I desire (or we desire). And when “the truth” turns, become adverse to what I desire, it is summarily labeled “bias,” “fake news,” etc.. Truth is an illusion by which the will deceives itself. Thought becomes true when it becomes my property. Self-deception pure, simple.

This is not good news. What am I to do now?

There is always Rock N’ Roll. This tune always lifts my spirit, Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.