Are we as Americans post-truth? Possibly, but we may just have diluted the meaning or concept. There are many truths in our society. Multiple truths. We even have the concept of "my truth" and "your truth". What is truth? Many have hypothesized about truth, and many have sought to define it. Some have sought to redefine it. Still, the unanswered question rings through the totality of human existence: What is truth?

Well, in the strictest sense of the word, truth is the actual reality that transcends all other viewpoints. In the past, the person who was "truthful" or "told the truth" was one who represented the actual reality in an accurate manner. The modern world has no such views. Indeed, a transcendent, actual reality is an oft-debated subject in our society. Where the society of the 40's and 50's acknowledged absolutes, modern cultures quibble over shades of gray, meaning, and paradigms.

Notice how I changed the subject there: From truth to absolutes. I'm going to change it yet again, from absolutes, to a synonym: constants. The argument for truth that is changeable based on your personal point of view is known as relativism. If the result is changed based on your point of view, then we are dealing with something that is variable. So, we are now dealing with constants and variables. Can you see where I am heading?

A variable is merely the container for a constant. A variable can act on a constant, but the variable must have a constant value. Therefore, both must be constant in order to come to a result. Otherwise, all you are left with is an unsolved problem. This is what the modern world is: An unsolved problem. Often, this is how modern cinema ends. A meandering protagonist and a plot device find life hard and meaningless, without any real solutions.

If you are in doubt of the effect relativism has on our lives, let me direct your attention to the ending of an Oscar winning film, "Lost in Translation". I'll never forget watching the ending of that film. It left me feeling both despondent and incredulous. I was despondent because Bill Murray and Scarlet Johanssen didn't get together, make a life together, do something together. I was incredulous, because I found myself rooting for adultery, for selfishness, and an abandonment of loyalties based on convenience.

The movie ended with the characters choosing the correct path, embracing hard truths, and not compromising their relationships. The film had set me up through its narrative to come to the conclusion that adultery was the best path to be taken, that they should be free to pursue what was right for them. Let the reader understand this: I believe in absolutes, especially those of the moral variety. Most people would just call this experience a side-effect of "suspension of disbelief". How did I allow my concept of morality to be hijacked? After all, this is not some gray area. Adultery, murder, rape, theft, these are things that all of society has general moral agreement upon, even if the mode or severity of punishment is contested.

There is no "suspension of disbelief", rather identification, because I would have done all of these things if given half a chance. Their choice of the correct path catches my hand in the cookie jar that they shut. Aye, there's the rub. It's absolutely wrong unless we are the ones implicated, or somebody we care deeply about commits the travesty. There is a common saying that everyone in prison is innocent. They are just victims of circumstantial evidence, a bad rap, or were framed. This is the argument that relativism makes: I'm not guilty, you just refuse to see things from my perspective.

The problem is this: Our point of view can be wrong. Relativism refuses to acknowledge our propensity to dissemble, stretch, bend, break, and otherwise disregard the constant that is truth, just to save ourselves. Truth is constant, irrefutable, and doesn't wear well in the infinite spin cycle that is American politics. Truth is absolute, unyielding in purity.

The truth is we are guilty of violating Truth. We can fudge it by choosing to never come to a conclusion, to leave the obvious solution to the problem unsolved. We can relegate it to the screaming death of our own consciences. We can bury it 'til its troubled voice is muffled, and weary of crying for release. It will not go away. Like the tell-tale heart of Poe, its beating grows ever louder until we must confess our misdeeds.

Or, we can ignore it. We can drown it out with the confused babblings of Oprah, and the need to maintain self-esteem. We can condemn ourselves to the hell of a life without meaning or direction, devoid of all comfort. The truth will still exist. The truth will never die, though we will. The Truth remains, should time itself breath a gasping, stilted, final breath.

What is truth? The question has been formed improperly. The query should be structured in this manner: "Who is Truth, and how do we stand in relation to this person?". If the Truth makes us guilty of wrongdoing, and convicts us of our evident misdeeds, be they ever so slight(and let's face it, they're not), then how do we align ourselves with Truth. How do we, in the way the ancients proposed, become one with Truth and with the Prime Mover? Perhaps we should allow Truth to testify of himself, and leave it at that. After all, the verdict of Truth is absolute. That which absolute, and that which is constant will give us direction in this life, and continue on into eternity. My words fall short, so I will let Truth speak:

"Jesus told him, "I am the way, the Truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!"

John 14:6-7 New Living Translation, The Bible