Minority Vs. Majority Vs. Truth
photo by: Toni F.
Many people seem to base their ideas about what is “true” and what is “false” upon some form of majority opinion. Sometimes it is a simple majority vote, sometimes a statistical sampling, while other times the “general consensus” of all people around the world. Whatever form it has, the basic premise that most people adhere to is that “truth” is best distinguished from “falsehood” by observing what most others believe to be the case.
That happens because people typically hold democracy in high regard; so high that often times they mistake democratic majority for “truth.” In democracies, policies and laws are determined by majority opinion - so why not “truth” as well? What must be understood is that while the democratic process may be a just means for deciding what policy to follow, that doesn’t mean that this process always hits upon the best or most correct policy.
Democracy is a system of establishing political and social justice, not a system for establishing truths. Physicists cannot determine the age of the universe by submitting the question to a vote of the majority. Philosophers cannot decide whether beauty is universal or not by meeting and casting ballots. Truth and justice are both important values, but they can’t be arrived at via the same means.
Looking around the internet, it is easy to see that what is considered to be true is what most people label as such. It is a case of reliance upon authority, in which the “authority figure” is represented by the entire population rather than a single individual or a particular group.
Alan Alexander Milne, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, writes: “The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”
Relying upon “general consent” doesn’t work as a valid means of separating truth from error; numerical strength does not confer the status of truth to anything.
“Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion… while truth again reverts to a new minority.” - Søren Kierkegaard
The biggest “problem” however, is that often times, truth gives no obvious advantage - in a world where almost everyone seeks advantages. Truth gives no higher status, no power over others, no special status; all you get is truth.
It may sound odd to wonder how and why truth matters - under most circumstances the importance of truth should be obvious. Nevertheless, the question of truth does have problems which are difficult to address; among them is the question of what role the notion of “truth” plays in our philosophy and our understanding of the world around us.
The simplest and most obvious definition of truth is, without a doubt, that which accords with reality. Here, we can say that truth matters because reality matters. And even though truth doesn’t automatically give you anything special, it is a requirement for anyone wanting to achieve anything. An old saying comes to mind, “keep it real.“
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As you say truth matters - it is our link to reality.
And truth is not a matter of majority or minority opinion.
But then it gets tricky. Scientific ‘truths’ (if it is possible to have this in a method that claims to be open to the future and learn ever more - Kierkegaard thought not) are expressed as statistics (probabilities).
The question becomes how truth is arrived at, recognised and disseminated. This brings in all the complications of democracy.
Thanks for a great post on a very important subject.
Hey Armand, I guess it all depends again on what you mean by “truth”. Is truth an entity independent of anything else?
Or is it our collective observation of what is?
Thank you for you appreciation, Evan!
The most tricky thing with truth is that the more one tries to reach it, define it and give it a shape, the further away it gets from it.
There are, of course, many defined types of truth, but for the purpose of this blog it is of little use to go into those details.
PS: For the purpose of this post, truth was defined as “that which accords with reality.”