Freemason Wisdom: Harry Truman On Judgement

"You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgments about what is going on."

~Harry S Truman

Belton Lodge No. 450, Missouri

When we have a decision to make about something, it's human nature to seek out advice or information from somebody we respect that sees things the same way we do.  The same is true when it comes to how we view larger issues in the world.  If our ideological beliefs lean one way, we might read this certain newspaper, and watch this particular news program, and same is true if we lean the other way.  We fall into a mindset that everything our newspaper says is right, and everything their newspaper says is wrong.  

But Harry was right--that's the wrong way to make judgments.  He understood this tendency more than sixty years ago.  You can't make an informed decision, or understand any issue completely hearing only half of the story.  We live in the information age--complete knowledge and understanding of any subject or issue has never been easier to access. It's never further than a keystroke away.  Yet we've never been more ideologically divided.  

That is because we don't listen to each other, and we don't try to understand each other.  We don't educate ourselves as we should before reaching a consensus, because we surround ourselves only with viewpoints that agree with our position.  We fail to understand that the truth and the solution to issues is always somewhere in the weeds between what our newspaper says, and what their newspaper says.  

We seem to be deadlocked these days, and the key to going forward is focusing on those things we all agree on, instead of squabbling over where we differ. 

~TEC