Are we too stupid to be a Democracy, or even Catholics?

[SoCalRC]

In another thread, I quoted something from the Catechism that I have read many times:

1790
A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791
This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792
Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting GUADIUM ET SPES

In glancing at just today’s threads, it struck me that there is an amazing disregard for simple truth here. I’m not talking about disagreements of opinion, but the rote repitition of things that are demonstrably false specifically for the purpose of attacking others.

Our obligation to truth is repeated many times in the Catechism and Church documents. Which made me wonder, are we really such horrible Christians, or are we just, by and large, stupid?

Perhaps we do not know that we are spreading falsehoods maliciously. But the Church seems to be saying that ignorance is not bliss. If we do not seek the truth, then we are “culpable” for the evil consequences of our actions.

As fate would have it, someone sent me a Guardian article, which is basically a quiz of 20 things that Editor Michael Tomasky would like his next president to know. It is a scattered and ecclectic list, but touches on many topics covered here. I wouldn’t expect the average person to know every answer. But, frankly, think that if someone struggles with more than a few, they really should make an effort to educate themselves before, say, voting and certainly before offering moral guidance on the same issue to other Catholics.

Here it is:

What follows are 20 facts that I would like my president to know, offered to you, my perpetually disgruntled readers, in the form of a quiz. Give it a whirl. It’s by definition a little idiosyncratic and not comprehensive, but I’d hope that most of us would agree that it’d be a good idea if the American president knew most of these things without having to be briefed on them. Sources are provided in the links embedded in the questions, but don’t cheat. The answers are at the end.

Global knowledge

1. The split between Sunni and Shia, the two main branches of Islam, is approximately how many years old?
   a. 700 years
   b. 1,100 years.
   c. 1,400 years.
   d. 3,200 years.

1. The gross domestic product real growth rate of China for 2007 is:
   a. 5.5%
   b. 11.4%
   c. 16.1%
   d. 20.7%

1. Roughly speaking, the respective populations of Palestinians and Jews in the West Bank are:
   a. 1.9 million and 700,000
   b. 2.3 million and 275,000
   c. 2.75 million and 540,000
   d. 3 million and 300,000

1. Scientific experts were “stunned” in 2007 to learn that the rate at which the Arctic polar ice cap is melting could leave the north pole completely ice-free as soon as:
   a. 2018
   b. 2060
   c. 2121
   d. 2030

Domestic Knowledge

1. By what year are Medicare expenditures expected to surpass Social Security expenditures?
   a. 2028
   b. 2014
   c. 2082
   d. 2525

1. In what percentage of the roughly 3,100 counties in the United States is there at least one legal abortion provider?
   a. 31%
   b. 28%
   c. 13%
   d. 56%

1. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a hand in about what percentage of mortgages in the United States?
   a. 30%
   b. 65%
   c. 40%
   d. 50%

1. How many Americans live below the official poverty line?
   a. 26 million
   b. 37 million
   c. 42 million
   d. 53 million

Everyday life

1. At the end of 2007, what was the average price in the US of a gallon of milk?
   a. $3.87
   b. $3.35
   c. $4.26
   d. $4.41

1. What’s the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a Chevrolet Malibu LS Sedan (base model)?
   a. $23,385
   b. $27,138
   c. $19,345
   d. $17,211

1. What’s the average annual cost of in-state tuition and fees at a typical state university – say, the University of Missouri?
   a. $14,380
   b. $16,050
   c. $24,700
   d. $20,600

1. In 2007, the average yearly premium for an employer-sponsored healthcare plan for a family of four was what?
   a. $12,100
   b. $9,900
   c. $18,450
   d. $14,200

American history

1. List these four historical incidents in chronological order from earliest to latest:
   a. The Monroe Doctrine
   b. The Indian Removal Act
   c. The Treaty of Ghent
   d. The Missouri Compromise

1. Who wrote the Federalist No 10?
   a. John Jay
   b. Gouverneur Morris
   c. Alexander Hamilton
   d. James Madison

1. When Truman secretary of state Dean Acheson told senator Arthur Vandenberg that he wanted the case made to the American people to be “clearer than truth”, he was referring to the case for what?
   a. The Berlin Airlift
   b. The Truman Doctrine
   c. The formation of Nato
   d. The Korean war

1. Affirmative action in the United States was initiated by:
   a. An act of Congress
   b. A supreme court decision
   c. A presidential executive order
   d. A policy enacted by a consortium of state university systems

General well-rounded human being-ness

1. In the Old Testament, who was changed into a pillar of salt?
   a. Job’s wife
   b. Job
   c. Lot’s wife
   d. Esau’s wife

1. Who is credited with the discovery of double-helix DNA?
   a. Difford and Tilbrook
   b. Watson and Crick
   c. Sly and Robbie
   d. Marsters and Gellar

1. Which of these teams has never won a Super Bowl?
   a. The Minnesota Vikings
   b. The Kansas City Chiefs
   c. The St Louis Rams
   d. The Pittsburgh Steelers

1. Simon, Randy and Paula are:
   a. The Kingston Trio
   b. The real names of Peter, Paul and Mary
   c. The judges on Dancing With the Stars
   d. The judges on American Idol

The full article is here:

guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/23/johnmccain.barackobama

Personally I wish it hadn’t included even an ‘answer guide’. Each question in the article contains a link to a related article and one key to being legitimately knowledgable about a subject is to actually learn something beyond the bare minimum. Even if one just skimmed the linked articles looking for the answer, they would at least pick up some stray facts.

Too often we play ‘phone line’, acting as parrots and simply repeating what we here. But as Catholics involved in Political Life, that is not acceptable, as Rome has explained:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

 

[Oscarthecat]

It almost sounds as if you’re promoting the idea that the average individual is not capable, by lack of intelligence or failure to exercise it, to self-govern.

Some would say that this problem is best dealt with by setting apart a group of the educated elite to manage society in such a way that the average individual can go about his business with a general sense of safety and security, but without sufficient freedoms to really screw up society or their own lives too much.

What do you say?

 

[JimG]

It almost sounds as if you’re promoting the idea that the average individual is not capable, by lack of intelligence or failure to exercise it, to self-govern.

Some would say that this problem is best dealt with by setting apart a group of the educated elite to manage society in such a way that the average individual can go about his business with a general sense of safety and security, but without sufficient freedoms to really screw up society or their own lives too much.

What do you say?

That was somewhat similar to the idea of the founders of the U.S. republic. Not that they enivsioned the Congress as an elite, but rather as representatives of the people. I think the idea was for people to elect someone whose judgment they trusted, and send them off to the House or Senate to consider legislation.

If they’d wanted the citizens to have to decide and vote on every issue individually, they would have established a democracy instead of a republic. And a democracy is just one step up from anarchy!

 

[Oscarthecat]

That was somewhat similar to the idea of the founders of the U.S. republic. Not that they enivsioned the Congress as an elite, but rather as representatives of the people. I think the idea was for people to elect someone whose judgment they trusted, and send them off to the House or Senate to consider legislation.

If they’d wanted the citizens to have to decide and vote on every issue individually, they would have established a democracy instead of a republic. And a democracy is just one step up from anarchy!

There is a sighnificant difference between a representative democracy and a self appointed ruling class who claims the right to rule the rest of society based on their assessment that they are more enlightened than everyone else.

 

[Dale_M]

It almost sounds as if you’re promoting the idea that the average individual is not capable, by lack of intelligence or failure to exercise it, to self-govern.

Actually, political scientists have described the American electorate in pretty awful terms since at least 1960. Another Peek Inside the Brain of the Electorate
The delightful term “cognitive misers” have even been applied to us.

As for the test… I failed. I missed ten of them, and a couple I got right were pure guesses.
(but question #2 doesn’t have a correct answer, at least according to the source the exam refers us to.)

 

[ribozyme]

Here is a dumbed-down version (relative to the posted test)…

pewresearch.org/newsiq/quiz/index.php

I received a 12 out of 12…

Regarding general knowledge in other areas, here is a pool of science questions from an online IQ test (it had other sections too so it did not test general knowledge):

The ancient bird Archaeopteryx was unlike ancient birds because:

a. it had no feathers
b. it did not lay eggs
c. it could probably talk
d. it had teeth
e. it is cold blooded
f. it was asexual

How many electrons are in an atom of Nickel
a. 1
b. 7
c. 14
d. 28.
e. 46
f. 52

How many chromosomes are in a normal human body cell
a. 12
b. 23
c. 46
d. 56
e. 58
f. 96

In quantum mechanics, which of the following states that it is impossible to specify

simultaneously the position and motion of a particle.

a. Planck’s constant
b. Schrodinger’s Cat
c. Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox
d. Klein-Gordon equation
e. Wave-particle duality
f. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

What indicates to astronomers that an object in space is moving towards them:

a. Red shift
b. Blue shift
c. White shift
d. Doppler shift
e. Drake shift
f. Gregorian shift

Arrange these temperatures from coldest to hottest:
100 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees Kelvin, 100 degrees Celsius

a. Kelvin, Celsius,Fahrenheit
b. Kelvin, Fahrenheit, Celsius
c. Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin
d. Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit
e. Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin
f. Fahrenheit, Kelvin, Celsius

Which of the following is the number of particles in a mole
a. Golden ratio
b. Modus tollens
c. Ehrhart polynomial
d. Avogadro’s number
e. Dirichlet tesselation

Silicon is to arsenic as iodine is to _____

a. chlorine
b. radon
c. germanium
d. bismuth
e. poison

(Don’t answer any of them although I know the answers to all of these.) I doubt many people would know that answers to these questions.

I do not see why people deem health savings accounts so attractive when most people cannot explain how taxanes work or the mechanism of statin drugs. I doubt most people have the intellectual capacity to make major health decisions. Of course, people should have access to competent medical advice and medical resources. But since people differ in intellectual capacity, it seems that the conservative’s emphasis on responsibility seems too utopian, and I prefer a welfare state governed using libertarian paternalist means.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

All dem smarts and you favors tyranny. Me. I like freedom and a free choice even if me stupid. It ain’t liberty if the government stacks the deck to what it likes.

In the free realm of ideas Catholicism wins. Liberty and true choice are her best friends. There are more ways to be “smart” than knowing dry facts and more ways to make intelligent choices than an “examination” of facts put down by an all too fallible human. Because people are busy or in the elite scientism’s estimation, stupid, does not justify tyranny by the elite.

Smart guys are just more better at bein bad.

 

[Oscarthecat]

All dem smarts and you favors tyranny. Me. I like freedom and a free choice even if me stupid. It ain’t liberty if the government stacks the deck to what it likes.

In the free realm of ideas Catholicism wins. Liberty and true choice are her best friends. There are more ways to be “smart” than knowing dry facts and more ways to make intelligent choices than an “examination” of facts put down by an all too fallible human. Because people are busy or in the elite scientism’s estimation, stupid, does not justify tyranny by the elite.

Smart guys are just more better at bein bad.

Exactly.

We have a responsibility to respect and protect the free will of others, even if they are exercising their freedom in a way we believe to be wrong, misguided, or, as the OP put it, “stupid.”

If God respects our free will enough to allow us to completely reject Him and choose hell instead, what does that say about those who think it is better to infringe on the free will other human beings to “save them from themselves.”

 

[Caesar517]

If God respects our free will enough to allow us to completely reject Him and choose hell instead, what does that say about those who think it is better to infringe on the free will other human beings to “save them from themselves.”

:clapping:

 

[SoCalRC]

All dem smarts and you favors tyranny. Me. I like freedom and a free choice even if me stupid. It ain’t liberty if the government stacks the deck to what it likes.

Sorry to pick on you, but this is precisely what I mean. I am not a “Dem”, I am a very conservative Catholic, which means if I take something like this:

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

(Pay particular attention to #4, which identifies 9 broad non-negotiable principles in voting - a list which is reiterated by Pope Benedict in Sacramentum Taritatis)

I cannot, in good conscience support either major US party. Our idea of political ‘conservatism’ in the US utterly baffles Catholics from most other countries in the world.

I take both my obligations as a citizen and as a Catholic very seriously. I volunteered for a war that I did not support because when one’s country calls, one serves, at least in my family. But I saw combat not as a soldier, but as a medic, to answer my conscience and my faith. I was wounded multiple times, once quite seriously, and my concerns for every American soldier continue to this day. My wife and I have spent substantial sums of money providing proper body armor and helmet upgrades for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and financial aide for families left behind as we ask a miniscule percentage of the population to bear the total burden with absurdly extended deployements and stop loss orders.

If your hypothesis is that ignorance is synomymous with freedom, I will have to disagree. Being ignorant just makes a person easy to manipulate, particularly through primal emotions like fear (fearful and stupid go hand in hand).

Likewise, if your hypothesis is that one can dehumanize large groups of people based on their politics and remain remotely Christian, I would again disagree. The simplest formula for Catholicism, according to the Compendium to the Catechism, is love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus made it clear, neighbor isn’t fellow-members-of-your-social-cliche, it includes your most hated and feared enemy.

Any ideology that rejects even the simplest formula of Catholicism is the wrong path. And ‘simplest’ is, in itself, a problem. We have people who pick between a Catholic Church and, say, a Protestant Church because of something as trivial as who has the better volley ball league. We should love our Protestant neighbors, but if you accept Catholicism, then you accept that their can not be salvation without the Church.

Think of it this way, what is the point of having a Holy and Apostolic Church, if you are woefully ignorant of what it teaches? Look at the Catechism section I quoted. Better yet, look at the Dogmatic Constitution, the bishops in communion with the Pope teach with the legitmate authority of Christ! If you are Catholic, what does it say if you commit 10-20 hours each week listening to, say, an overweight drug convict with an apparent ED problem and a thing for underage Dominican protitutes, but have never read a book written by the true Vicar of Christ?

Doesn’t Jesus tell us that you can tell which master is loved most by one’s actions in the Gospels?

 

[KingAlfred]

No offense, but the OP sounds sort of scary. What’s the implication – militant theocracy?

 

[ribozyme]

No offense, but the OP sounds sort of scary. What’s the implication – militant theocracy?

I do not want a theocracy… I do not want the country run by politicians acting under “reciprocal altruism” because they receive funds for corporate contributers. I want the country to be run by liberal wonks who are not significantly influenced by the private sector. I think that is a nice secular alternative to the theocracy.

 

[SoCalRC]

If God respects our free will enough to allow us to completely reject Him and choose hell instead, what does that say about those who think it is better to infringe on the free will other human beings to “save them from themselves.”

Why is encouraging less ignorance impuning anyone’s free will?

The founding fathers all believed that democracy would only work with an informed electorate.

Likewise the Church has always viewed it as important that we teach each generation so that fully understands the faith. Minimal understanding and maximum individual free will is a Protestant concept of Christianity, not a Catholic one.

As I just mentioned above, I’ve served in combat to protect the constitutional right for anyone here to be a loud and ignorant blowhard. But if you are on this forum, then you must have some interest in Catholicism. A free, pluralistic, secular society (which I believe provides the most religious freedom for Catholics) must allow for willful stupidity. But our faith, as we have seen, does not. We have a Christian obligation to the truth and a comprehensive understanding of our faith:

“The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good. Nor can a Catholic think of delegating his Christian responsibility to others; rather, the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives him this task, so that the truth about man and the world might be proclaimed and put into action.”

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html

If you tell yourself you are a good Catholic because you vote for a less instrinsically evil position on abortion, while immersing yourself in the politics of divisiveness and ignoring and dismissing moral issues that the Church has expressly identified as “non negotiable”, becuse they are the “essence” of the moral law, you are not listening to the Magesterium.

If that is the case, it might be a good time to self evaluate if you do, in fact, accept the Primacy of the Church and its Dogmatic Gift of Authority.

 

[SoCalRC]

No offense, but the OP sounds sort of scary. What’s the implication – militant theocracy?

Encourging pepole to actually now something about the subjects they vote on or the vote they practice equates to militant theocracy?

How silly of me not to recognize the founding fathers for the tyrannical communists they were…

It’s simple, if you are ignorant, you are easily manipulated. Democracy works best when you vote your moral conscience and the common good, not fear colored through falsehoods.

Similiarly, we live in a Protestant culture with a overwhelming Protestant history. If we are lazy about understanding the faith, or lazy about practicing it, it will die. ‘Putting butts in the seats’ works for other denominations. Add light shows, lasers, rock bands, better volley ball. But we require a sustainable ordinary, which means our young must be instilled with Catholicism, not the focus on self of secularism and protestantism.

But, if the overwhelming belief here is that ‘stupid is good’ or ‘ignorance is free’, then my question is already answered. We will continue to move towards a corporate fascist state and most parishes in the US won’t even have a full time pastor for spiritual guidance.

 

[Oscarthecat]

Sorry to pick on you, but this is precisely what I mean. I am not a “Dem”, I am a very conservative Catholic, which means if I take something like this:

Uh, don’t want to take the wind out of your sails, but he wasn’t calling you a democrat, or making any reference to political parties whatsoever.

He was using the word “them,” typing it as “dem.” If you noticed, his grammar was also deliberately poor grammar in that post- probably in response to your inference that so many people are “just too stupid” to handle democracy or Catholicism.

If you’re still having trouble with his statement- think of Larry the Cable Guy.

 

[nicolep]

Sorry to pick on you, but this is precisely what I mean. I am not a “Dem”,

The poster was being facetious. He/she was using the word “dem” as an unintelligent way of saying “them”.

Edit Oops…Oscarthecat beat me…

 

[SoCalRC]

Uh, don’t want to take the wind out of your sails, but he wasn’t calling you a democrat, or making any reference to political parties whatsoever.

I was indicating that I am not a “Dem” in the sense of being a member of a stereotype group of any kind.

Responding in a political context made sense because he is expressing a common political ideology. There is more to smarts than facts?

Think about it, I can make intelligent choices about a subject without knowing the facts?

This is the result of two common themes in public discourse, one, I don’t need to be troubled with, say, reality, because I am inarguably one of the good guys, ‘Dem’ are the bad guys, so ‘our’ choices will be good rather they match reality or not. Even if they turn out to be spectacularly stupid (like sending political hacks and ideologs to do nation building, or disbanding the Iraqi military), that is ok, because the ‘evil’ people would have done something worse…

Second, that there is something disdainful about being educated and articulate. When I was young, we thought of Benjamin Franklin as a hero. Humble beginnings, Edison like inquisitiveness, a legitmate spokesman for the common man, but quite comfortable among royalty. He was not saint, he was a terrible family man and had questionable sexual mores. But he was a remarkable person none-the-less, and his ability to get the endorsement of France was pivotal in achieving American Indepedance.

Now, if you grow up on food stamps, dedicate some time to community service over max profit, and are articulate and well informed, you are an “elitist”. But, if you host a BBQ at your ‘ranch’ or ‘cabin’, which is more accurately one of your multiple enormous estates, for a group of people who all make 6 figures or more, you are a “regular guy”.

So what is it, is it weath? Obviously not. If you can call a mansion on some of the most expensive realestate in the region, you are not in touch with the average American in terms of finances. Is it the menu? Presumably not, the BBQ wasn’t frozen burger paties and hot dogs on the Weber, it included plenty of fancy foods and a catering crew.

So what? The two most obvious answers are, we have either been conditioned to relish ignorance and have disdain any other state, or we have become a nation of sheep, who simply parrot what we are told without any critical thought whatsoever.

I couldn’t have voted John Kerry, primarily because of abortion. But what does it say about US discourse when a draft dodging cheerleader from Anover is ‘manly’ and the guy who volunteers and gets shot at in Vietnam is the ‘sissy’?

Stepping back further, what does it say that we are fighting two wars, both of which at least started with high popularity, and we have to resort to multi 15 month deployments, stop loss orders for a backdoor draft, and even redeploying troops whose prior injuries prevent them from even being able to wear body armor?

Or, that the percentage of Catholics in the US is the highest that it has been in US history - and growing, and we cannot even match the rate of attrition with regards to new priests?

The obvious answer is that we are both a nation of gutless loudmouths and lip service Catholics. My theory is that these are side effects, not the root causes. We are failing to pass on our culture, both as a society and as Catholics. Most high school graduates can’t even vaguely describe our actual mechanisms of governance, and most Catholics can’t answer basic questions about our faith or identify our theological differences with other self described Christians.

When that vaccuum is filled with a constant bombardment of a message of the joys of self gratification and the glorification of ignorance, it is no wonder that the vast majority of us agree, when asked, that the country is heading in the wrong direction

 

[SoCalRC]

The poster was being facetious. He/she was using the word “dem” as an unintelligent way of saying “them”.

Edit Oops…Oscarthecat beat me…

And, as noted, I was going with it, objecting to being a stereotype. But addressing what is a political ideology.

But hey, if more Catholics can name the winners of American Idol than the Ten Commandments, or more Americans can recite the antics of another drunk and broken celebutart than articles of the constitution or the bill or rights, no biggy…

 

[nicolep]

And, as noted, I was going with it, objecting to being a stereotype. But addressing what is a political ideology.

But hey, if more Catholics can name the winners of American Idol than the Ten Commandments, or more Americans can recite the antics of another drunk and broken celebutart than articles of the constitution or the bill or rights, no biggy…

Whatever floats your boat!

 

[Oscarthecat]

Ok, before you go off excommunicating everyone who took offense at your original post, maybe it would be better to step back and rephrase your original post to reflect what you really appear to be getting at.

Now that you’ve had a chance to elaborate on your views, it appears you are actually addressing a number of different issues.

It seems to me that you’re asking 3 questions, each with their own follow-up question:

1. Are citizens of this country living up to their obligation to be responsible participants in it, specifically in regard to fulfilling their duty to be reasonably informed about critical issues at stake in their society?

a. What are we to do, as citizens of this country, about the increasingly prevalent problem that so many citizens are forsaking their responsibility to be reasonably well informed about the issues at stake in our country, and instead are choosing instead to be deliberately ignorant?

1. Are Catholics in this country living up to their obligation to be responsible citizens, specifically in regard to fulfilling their duty to be reasonably informed about critical issues at stake in their society?

a. What are we to do, as Catholics, about the increasingly prevalent problem that so many Catholics in our society are forsaking the Church’s instruction to make themselves reasonably informed about critical issues at stake in their society in light of Church teaching?

1. Are Catholics living up to their obligation to understand what the Church teaches on matters of the faith and morals as they relate to our role as moral agents in society.

a. What are we to do, as Catholics, about the increasinglly prevalent problem that so many Catholics in our society are forsaking Church teaching, either through deliberate ignorance or outright dissent?

A question I’d like to to ask you, so that the rest of us get a better understanding of what you’re trying to say, is what you mean when you call someone “stupid,” “ignorant,” and “deliberately ignorant.”

I would also like to point out that I believe you overspoke when you stated “We have a Christian obligation to the truth and a comprehensive understanding of our faith.” I think what you meant to say was “We have a Christian obligation to constantly seek the truth and grow in our understanding of our faith.”

I’m sure you’d agree that it is not humanly possible to have a comprehensive understanding of the Church. What’s more, the call to grow in our understanding of the faith is individual- such that the average layperson is not expected to have the same understanding of the faith at the same level as, say, a Cardinal who is expected to teach the truths of the faith. However, we ARE expected to trust in and accept those teachings of the Church that we do not understand either due to our own ignorance of the facts or our own lack of understanding of the truth.