• VOLUME III Contents

Shaping Truth:Culture, Expression, and Creativity (Vol. III)

Truth for me is what I cannot help believing. To make clear what I understand by this will perhaps take a little explaining. I say that this proposition appears to me almost in the nature of a truism so far as it goes. Certainly that which I do not believe I cannot in any intelligible sense call true; this would be to empty terms of all accepted meaning. And indeed everything that I really do believe must for the moment come under the head of what I call the true. But the words "cannot help believing" are intended to limit the field somewhat; for we are engaged on a philosophical inquiry, and what we are after in the end is not anything that may seem true, but what approves itself as true to the persistent inquirer. If we simply believed things, the problem of truth would not yet have arisen. (Rogers 1923)

Truth. What is it? How is it determined? How is it recognized? People search for the truth in many ways: some are convinced they possess the truth; some believe they are living the truth; some are unconcerned with the very idea of truth; some deny there is any truth; others seek truth knowing they will never find the whole truth.

Does truth exist in the process of seeking? Or is truth shaped by societal forces? Truth has been defined as conformity to knowledge, fact, actuality, or logic. Is truth, then, relative to the human community? Can truth exist without cultural relativism? "Considering the variety of human nature as a result of evolution why should it not require an indefinite number of systems to express human nature in the various stages of its development and in its various moods? And why are they not all true, in so far they are really genuine and really express human nature then and there?" (Boodin 1911).

More questions must follow. If truth is relative, is truth shaped—developed or given definitive form? What are these shapes? What are the circumstances that determine these shapes? The seminal writings that comprise the LCSR volume, Shaping Truth: Culture, Expression, and Creativity, address these concerns. Although there are no definitive answers to the questions, this collection is a reflection of the world’s on-going conversation about the concept and nature of truth.

Every culture develops a traditional repertoire of forms in which the concept of truth is given shape—narrative, drama, verse, music, and art. These forms are given shape through the creative processes in which the creator—the storyteller, the playwright, the poet, the musician, the artist—gives oral, tangible, or visual shape to ideas, philosophies, or feelings that seek to find universal truth. These shapes are responsive to the ways in which diverse societies, through collective history, customs, and beliefs, find answers. Yet these shapes are also determined by the imagination and creativity of the individual maker, the one who envisions a picture or composes a song. Through expression, the creator seeks to fulfill the innate human urge to understand ourselves and our universe and thus becomes the articulator of shared beliefs and values that give shape to the concept of truth. The creator thus becomes the vessel through which humanity seeks truth.

The meanings and content that are given shape are inseparable from their formal stylistic and characteristic compositional qualities that are both conditioned by culture and determined by the maker’s creativity and intentions. But the makers are conversant with the Muses who give creative inspiration to poetry, song, and other arts. And the temple of the Muses is first of all a school. Each creator modifies shapes through imagination and interpretation of the original concept or belief. Truth, therefore, becomes subject to interpretation and is constructed to fit expectations, convey a message, or support a particular agenda. These shapes then become part of a continuum, a continuous thread of influence and impact, a progression of shape and idea transcending time and culture.

One night, inevitably, a blind man turned up at Hrothgar’s temporary meadhall. He was carrying a harp. . . As if all by itself, then, the harp made a curious run of sounds, almost words, and then a moment later, arresting as a voice from a hollow tree, the harper began to chant. . . So he sang—or intoned, with the harp behind him—twisting together like sailors’ ropes the bits and pieces of the best old songs. The people were hushed. Even the surrounding hills were hushed, as if brought low by language. He knew his art. He was king of the Shapers, harpstring scratchers. . . as what had brought him over wilderness, down blindman’s alleys of time and space, to Hrothgar’s famous hall . . . What was he? The man had changed the world, had torn up the past by its thick, gnarled roots and had transmuted it, and they, who knew the truth, remembered it his way—and so did I (Gardner).*

Barbara Rothermel
M.L.S.
Director, Daura Gallery

Sources
Boodin, John Elof. 1911. Truth and Reality: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. New York: The Macmillan Company, 3.

Gardner, John. 1989. Grendel. New York: Vintage Books, 40-43.

Rogers, Arthur Kenyon. 1923. "What Is Truth? An Essay in the Theory of Knowledge." New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, James Wesley Cooper Memorial Publication Fund, 1.