TRUTH

How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality

Hector Macdonald

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CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hector Macdonald is an expert in business storytelling. As a strategic communications consultant he has advised the leaders of some of the world’s top corporations in industries as diverse as financial services, telecoms, technology and healthcare. He is also the bestselling author of four novels.

www.hectormacdonald.com

ABOUT THE BOOK

For fans of Nudge, Blink and The Art of Thinking Clearly, a fascinating dive into the many ways in which ‘competing truths’ shape our opinions, behaviours and beliefs.

True or false? It’s rarely that simple.

There is more than one truth about most things. Eating meat is nutritious but it’s also damaging to the environment. The Internet disseminates knowledge but it also spreads hatred. When we communicate we naturally select the truths that are most helpful to our agenda.

We can select truths constructively to inspire organizations, encourage children, and drive progressive change. Or we can select truths that give a false impression of reality, misleading people without actually lying. Others can do the same, motivating or deceiving us with the truth. Truths are neutral but highly versatile tools that we can use for good or ill.

In Truth, Hector Macdonald explores how truth is used and abused in politics, business, the media and everyday life. He shows how a clearer understanding of truth’s many faces renders us better able to navigate our world and more influential within it. Combining great storytelling with practical takeaways and a litany of fascinating, funny and insightful case studies, Truth is a sobering and engaging read about how profoundly our mindsets and actions are infl uenced by the truths that those around us choose to tell.

PREFACE

This book looks forward to a backlash.

Written during an epidemic of fake news and alternative facts, it anticipates a revival of public concern for the truth and a widespread insistence that politicians, business leaders, campaigners and other professional communicators be held accountable for the veracity of their words. I have confidence that we value truth enough to fight for it.

But truth is not as straightforward as it seems. There are different ways to speak truth, not all of them honest. On most issues, there are multiple truths we can choose to communicate. Our choice of truth will influence how those around us perceive an issue and react to it. We can select truths that engage people and inspire action, or we can deploy truths that deliberately mislead. Truth comes in many forms, and experienced communicators can exploit its variability to shape our impression of reality.

This is a book about truth, not lies, although much of it is concerned with how truth can be used just like lies. The same instincts, pressures and incentives that lead communicators to say things that aren’t true also lead them to use truth in a highly misleading way. By showing how it is done, I hope to encourage more people to spot and call out misleading truths.

Different forms of truth can be used in a more constructive way, to unite, inspire and transform. Selecting the right truth can bring a company together, give courage to an army, speed the development of a new technology, rally supporters to a political party and galvanize the energy, creativity and enthusiasm of whole organizations. Leaders need to understand their communications options and know how to pick and present the most engaging truths.

This book is for anyone who wants to communicate truthfully but understands that they have a choice of truths to use. It’s for anyone tired of being led up the garden path by politicians, marketers and PR officers using technically truthful constructions. Which truth will be most effective in making your point? Which truth will inspire your organization? Which truth is the most ethical? What truths might others use to persuade us to act against our own interests? How can we challenge misleading truths? Truth should help answer these questions.

A book about truth is an easy target for accusations of inaccuracy or falsehood. In the many stories and topics covered, I have tried hard to get the facts right, but inevitably there will be errors. I welcome corrections from sharp-eyed readers or from all those who know more than I do about the issues discussed. Your feedback now will save my blushes in later editions. I would also like to hear about interesting, sly, outrageous and transformative truths you’ve encountered in the news, in your organization or in life. Please send me your corrections and suggestions via https://hectormacdonald.com/truth.

London, October 2017

INTRODUCTION

When Truths Collide

The Andean dilemma

For vegetarians and coeliacs, the discovery of quinoa was a kind of miracle. Here was a gluten-free seed, rich in magnesium and iron, that contained more protein than any grain, including all the essential amino acids our bodies cannot produce for themselves. NASA declared quinoa to be one of the most perfectly balanced nutrients on Earth and considered it ideal for astronauts. ‘Quinoa tastes great, has a satisfying, “bouncy” texture and is one of the healthiest foodstuffs going,’ raved Yotam Ottolenghi in 2007.¹ Grown in the Andes, quinoa had a story that charmed Western consumers: the Incas prized the seed so highly they deemed it sacred and named it ‘the mother of all grains’; their emperor would sow the first seeds of the season with tools made of gold. The so-called ‘superfood’ was even celebrated by the United Nations, which declared 2013 the ‘International Year of Quinoa’.

But quinoa fans were in for a disturbing revelation. Between 2006 and 2013, quinoa prices in Bolivia and Peru tripled. At first, the price rise was celebrated for raising the living standards of poor Andean farmers. Then came rumours that local people could no longer afford to eat their traditional food because of the insatiable demand from North America and Europe. The Independent warned in 2011 that quinoa consumption in Bolivia had ‘slumped by 34 per cent over five years, with local families no longer able to afford a staple that has become a luxury’.² The New York Times cited studies showing that malnutrition in children was on the rise in quinoa-growing areas.³ The Guardian raised the stakes in 2013 with a provocative headline: ‘Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?’ It was now cheaper for poor Peruvians and Bolivians to eat ‘imported junk food’, the newspaper reported.⁴ ‘Quinoa: good for you – bad for Bolivians,’ ran a 2013 Independent headline.⁵

The story echoed around the world, causing healthy eaters a crisis of conscience. ‘The more you love quinoa, the more you hurt Peruvians and Bolivians,’ claimed a headline in Canada’s Globe and Mail.⁶ On social media, vegan blogs and healthy-eating forums, people asked whether it was still OK to eat the Andean miracle seed. ‘I intend to stop eating quinoa,’ declared one woman:

The idea that high quinoa prices, inflated by global demand, had disadvantaged local people in Bolivia and Peru was credible and widely accepted. But it didn’t seem right to economists Marc Bellemare, Seth Gitter and Johanna Fajardo-Gonzalez. After all, a lot of foreign money was now pouring into Bolivia and Peru thanks to the quinoa trade, much of it ending up in some of the poorest parts of South America. Not many other crops grow well 14,000 feet above sea level, so surely the quinoa boom was a blessing for the region?

The economists tracked down Peruvian survey data on household expenditure and split the households into those that grow and eat quinoa, those that eat it but don’t grow it, and those that never touch the stuff. They found that between 2004 and 2013 the living standards of all three groups had risen, although the quinoa farmers had enjoyed the fastest growth in household expenditure. Farmers were getting richer, and they were spending their new earnings to the benefit of those around them.⁸ The households that ate quinoa but didn’t grow it were, on average, already twice as well off as the farmers, suggesting they could afford to pay a bit more. That’s not surprising: only around 0.5 per cent of Peruvian household spending goes on quinoa. It never was a critical part of their domestic budget. ‘It’s really a happy story,’ said Seth Gitter. ‘The poorest people got the gains.’⁹

But what about that 34 per cent drop in consumption? It turns out quinoa consumption in both countries dropped slowly and steadily over a longer period than the price hike, suggesting the two trends are not significantly connected. A much more likely explanation is that Peruvians and Bolivians just wanted to eat something else for a change. Tanya Kerssen of think tank Food First said of Andean quinoa farmers, ‘They get sick of eating quinoa, frankly, so they buy other foods.’¹⁰ A Bolivian agronomist noted, ‘Ten years ago they had only an Andean diet in front of them. They had no choice. But now they do and they want rice, noodles, candies, Coke, they want everything!’¹¹

I went to see quinoa growing in the Colca Valley, an area of Peru that has been farmed since pre-Inca times. It is a beautiful cereal-like crop, with large seed heads of a deep red or rich golden colour. In this part of the Andes, quinoa is grown in terraced fields alongside unusual local varieties of corn and potatoes. ‘The foreign demand is one hundred per cent a good thing,’ declared my Peruvian guide, Jessica. ‘The farmers are very happy, and anyone who wants quinoa can still afford it.’ There’s been a further benefit, she explained: previously, metropolitan Peruvians had tended to regard people from her region as ‘peasants’ for eating quinoa; but now that Americans and Europeans crave it, quinoa is considered fashionable. ‘In Lima, finally, they have respect for the people of the Altiplano and our heritage.’

In a remote and inhospitable area of southwest Bolivia dominated by salt flats and dormant volcanos, I was shown much-needed local development and tourism projects that had been funded by quinoa money. Subsistence farmers, who for generations had struggled to feed their families, could now start to invest in a more ambitious future. According to José Luis Landívar Bowles, president of the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade, quinoa could ‘help lift a lot of people out of extreme poverty’.¹²

The only concern I heard Bolivians voice about the crop in April 2017 was that expanding supply was bringing prices down. The area of land dedicated to quinoa cultivation in Bolivia has more than tripled, from around 50,000 hectares in 2007 to 180,000 hectares in 2016. ‘For me, that is a sad epilogue, as it is unlikely prices will go back up,’ Marc Bellemare told me later. ‘The market functioned pretty much in Econ 101 textbook fashion, with the (temporary) extra-normal profits competed away by new producers.’

As the sun set over the picturesque Colca Valley, I asked Jessica if consumers in Europe and North America should feel guilty about eating food that might otherwise have gone to Peruvians and Bolivians. I could guess the answer, but I wanted to hear it from a local. Jessica burst out laughing and extended an arm, as if to encompass the whole bounteous valley. ‘Believe me,’ she smiled, ‘we have a lot of quinoa.’

This odd tale of food fads, global trade and consumer angst seems, at first glance, to be a story of falsehood corrected. But in fact most of the claims made in the first half are just as true as those made in the second. Quinoa prices did triple, making it more expensive for consumers in Peru and Bolivia to buy one of their staple foods. Quinoa consumption in those countries did drop. The only thing that wasn’t true was the conclusion drawn: that healthy eaters in the West were hurting poor Peruvians and Bolivians by denying them their traditional foodstuff. Yet those truths, misinterpreted as they were, might have done real damage to the people of the Altiplano. ‘I’ve seen comments on some of these anti-quinoa articles, like, “Thanks for shining a light on the truth. I won’t consume Bolivian quinoa because it’s hurting these farmers,”’ said Michael Wilcox, a filmmaker who made a documentary about the issue. ‘Well, not consuming it is really going to hurt these farmers.’¹³

A set of partial truths and misunderstood numbers were strung together in a story without the right context, changing both the desirability of a foodstuff and the morality of eating it. As we will discover, partial truths, numbers, stories, context, desirability and morality are just some of the elements used by experienced communicators in all walks of life to shape reality by presenting a particular view of the world. In this case, the journalists and bloggers steering consumers away from quinoa were doing it for the noblest of reasons: they were genuinely concerned for the welfare of an impoverished people suddenly exposed to the tempestuous winds of global trade. We will encounter plenty of cases where politicians, marketers, activists and even civil servants have shaped reality with far less benevolent intentions.

Truth or truths?

Compare these statements:

Both statements are true. Yet to someone who had never heard of the Internet, the first statement would give a completely different impression to the second.

There are many sides to every story. To put the old saying another way, there is usually more than one truth to be drawn from any set of facts. We learn this from an early age: every junior debater and errant schoolchild knows how to pick the truths that best support their case. But we may not appreciate how much flexibility these different truths offer communicators. In many cases, there are a variety of genuinely – perhaps even equally – legitimate ways of describing a person, event, thing or policy.

I call them ‘competing truths’.

A few years ago, I was asked to support a transformation programme at a global corporation that was going through a particularly tough patch. This was not an unusual assignment. My career in strategic communications has given me the opportunity to help dozens of world-leading companies clarify what they want to do and then explain it to their employees. I interviewed the corporation’s top executives to gather their views on the state of their industry and their organization. After consolidating all the facts they’d given me, I sat down with the CEO in a plush Manhattan executive suite and asked him whether he wanted me to write the ‘Golden Opportunity’ story or the ‘Burning Platform’ story of his business.

The Golden Opportunity story would describe the exciting new technological developments that could help the business meet growing demand in key areas of the market and so build a flourishing and profitable future. But the company would miss out on this golden opportunity unless everyone got behind the impending transformation programme. The Burning Platform story, by contrast, would reflect the recent failures of the organization and the deep cultural malaise that had resulted, leading to a vicious cycle of apathy and worsening results that could destroy the organization within five years. The only way to avoid this fate was for everyone to get behind the impending transformation programme.

Both of these stories were true. There really was a great new opportunity to flourish, and if they didn’t seize it the very existence of the organization was in jeopardy. The two versions of the truth were both intended to produce the same outcome: employee support for a difficult and painful transformation. But each would create a very different impression of reality in the minds of those employees. Smart people, some of them with multiple degrees, would be persuaded by their leaders to feel either anxious or excited about the future, depending on which story the CEO chose to tell. And that mindset would colour almost everything they did, thought and felt.

The unsettling flexibility of such communications got me questioning how it can be possible to tell more than one truth about a situation, and wondering where else this phenomenon might apply. I started spotting competing truths in the news, in politicians’ speeches, in advertisements, in polemical books, in Facebook newsfeeds, in campaigning literature. Some of them were used benignly to achieve shared goals. Others were clearly intended to mislead and dupe. At first, I simply recorded incidences of competing truths in a blog. But gradually I began to see recurring patterns, and that led to a more critical and comprehensive analysis of how competing truths arise. Most importantly, I understood at last how profoundly we are influenced by the competing truths others choose.

Wind the clock back a few years and imagine you’ve never heard of quinoa. You find it on a shelf in your local store and ask the nearest assistant about it. He tells you one true thing about the bag of seeds in your hand. It could be:

Or:

Or:

Or:

You are more likely to buy the quinoa if the assistant comes up with one of the first two truths than if he chooses either of the others. He has influenced your action through his selection of a particular competing truth. He has, in a small way, shaped your immediate reality.

In fact, he has done more than that. He has also shaped the way you think about quinoa. He has laid the groundwork for a set of ideas and beliefs about quinoa to crystallize in your mind. This mindset may continue to influence the purchases you make, the things you say and the food you eat for a long time to come.

A mindset is a set of beliefs, ideas and opinions that we hold about ourselves and the world around us. Our mindsets determine how we think about things and how we choose to act.

Mindsets are flexible in some respects. The part of our mindset that is concerned with quinoa will be very receptive to the first thing we hear about the foodstuff. We are easily influenced when we know nothing about a subject. But once we have established a view on quinoa, once our mindset is settled, it can be surprisingly hard to shift. If, three months after we’ve been told that quinoa farming is damaging the Andes, someone mentions the nutritional benefits of the seeds, we are quite likely to ignore, doubt or dismiss that information. This is a form of confirmation bias: we tend to be more receptive to new truths that fit with our existing mindsets, and resistant to those that challenge our entrenched views.

Months after that store visit, you might be having lunch with a colleague and see her choose a quinoa salad. If the original truth you heard about quinoa was the environmental-impact issue, you might be inclined to judge her harshly for her lunch choice. You might even try to persuade her to pick something else. Your mindset – shaped by that original truth – is still driving your thoughts and actions all this time later.

We all see the world through different lenses, formed largely by the different truths we hear and read. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, other people regularly steer us towards particular facets and interpretations of the truth. ‘Our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe,’ wrote Walter Lippmann, one of the twentieth century’s great political journalists and an expert user of competing truths. ‘They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine’¹⁴ (my emphasis). What others report contributes to our perceived reality. But because we act on the basis of our perceptions, what others report also impacts objective reality.

Competing truths shape reality.

Competing truths inform our mindsets, and our mindsets determine our subsequent choices and actions. We vote, shop, work, cooperate and fight according to what we believe to be true. Some truths stay with us for life, determining the most important choices we make and defining the very nature of our character. Whether we are faced with a police shooting, a company mission statement, a group of refugees, a presidential candidate, a holy book, a scientific finding, a contentious statue or a natural disaster, our response – which may be dramatic, transformative or violent – will stem from our mindset.

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that much of what we think and do is determined by the competing truths we hear and read. If we care about the influences that drive us to buy a product, support a politician, denounce a public figure or fight for a cause, we need to understand how competing truths work and what we can do about them. This book will answer both questions.

The king’s speech

When George VI delivered his radio address to Britain and its Empire at the start of the Second World War, his stammer was not the only reason for brevity. The king’s words needed to resonate with people of all backgrounds, cultures and educations. A great number of his listeners were not native English speakers and might struggle to follow a long account of recent events. Many wouldn’t understand the geopolitical complexities that had led to Britain’s declaration of war. Nevertheless, the king’s appeal to his subjects to ‘stand calm and firm and united’ was surprisingly simple. The full address is just over 400 words long. The factual part is less than half of that:

Think about what he’s left out: German rearmament, the violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazi pacts with Italy and the Soviet Union, the remilitarization of the Rhineland and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Astonishingly, he doesn’t even mention Germany, Hitler or the invasion of Poland. Instead, the king focuses on a moral claim that has universal appeal.

Despite the obvious factual omissions and the highly selective focus, few would suggest that George VI was misrepresenting the situation. He was voicing a set of truths that were perfectly chosen to steady an empire and prepare his people for war. More information would not have been more honest – it would have merely diluted the message.

So competing truths can be used constructively. Responsible marketers address different messages to different consumer segments, focusing on the product benefits that are most relevant to each segment. Doctors tell their patients the medical facts they need to know to manage their condition, without burdening them with complex details of cell biology or pharmacology. Social justice advocates, environmental campaigners, clerics, public health authorities and leaders of all kinds have to select the right competing truth to win hearts and minds and so achieve their important goals.

Toothpaste and breast cancer

For many years, Colgate-Palmolive ran advertisements claiming that ‘more than 80 per cent of dentists recommend Colgate’.¹⁶ Consumers naturally assumed the survey data behind this claim measured the proportion of dentists who recommended Colgate toothpaste in preference to other brands. In fact, dentists were being asked which brands (plural) they would recommend, and most named several; a competitor brand was recommended almost as often as Colgate. The thing being measured was not what we had been led to believe, and Colgate-Palmolive’s slogan was eventually banned by the Advertising Standards Authority – even though it was true.¹⁷

Where George VI used competing truths to give a highly simplified but honest account of reality, and the quinoa bloggers innocently cited competing truths that distorted reality, Colgate-Palmolive’s marketers deliberately deployed a competing truth that misled consumers. They are not alone. Politicians are adept at spinning truths in a way that creates a false impression. Newspapers bend the truth in attention-grabbing headlines, then straighten it out again in the less-read body of the story. Activists cherry-pick truths that support their campaign, even when they misrepresent a greater truth.

‘The only thing I don’t believe in is lying,’ says Frank Luntz, a master of competing truths whom we shall meet properly later. ‘Beyond that, you can use almost anything.’¹⁸

People are out to mislead you with the truth in all walks of life. Even, in some cases, the people you should be able to rely on for impartial, essential advice …

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among American women, and after lung cancer the second most fatal. So when the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) published a booklet for pregnant women in 2016 making a link between abortion and breast cancer, many pro-choice readers were understandably alarmed. The booklet, entitled ‘A Woman’s Right to Know’, has a section headed ‘Abortion risks’. The five risks listed include Death, Future Infertility and … ‘Breast Cancer Risk’. Here’s the official Texas health advice:

It is true that women who give birth early in life seem to have a lower risk of developing breast cancer. It is not true that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, according to all the best research in the field. The American Cancer Society says, ‘The scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer.’²⁰ The US government’s National Cancer Institute agrees: ‘Studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.’²¹

But then, the Texas DSHS does not actually claim that abortion causes cancer. It merely implies it. The government officials responsible for the booklet might as well have stated that, ‘Avoiding pregnancy altogether will not provide you this increased protection against breast cancer.’ The words the Texas DSHS selected are true, but they are clearly intended to suggest something that is not true. A political agenda has superseded the impartial health advice Texans have a right to expect from their state government.

‘The wording in Texas gets very cute,’ observes Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. ‘It’s technically correct, but it is deceiving.’²²

A powerful tool for good or ill

Everyone has an agenda, and it is only natural for communicators to select truths that further their agenda. But this can be done ethically or deceitfully: communicators can choose whether to convey an impression of reality that is in line with objective reality or one that deliberately distorts it. Moreover, their agenda may be aligned with or opposed to their audience’s interests; it may be benign or malevolent. Competing truths are morally neutral: like a loaded gun or a box of matches, the way they are used determines their impact. We will encounter competing truths used in all kinds of ways, for good purposes and bad.

To keep things simple, we can think about three types of communicators:

Advocates: selecting competing truths that create a reasonably accurate impression of reality in order to achieve a constructive goal.

Misinformers: innocently propagating competing truths that unintentionally distort reality.

Misleaders: deliberately deploying competing truths to create an impression of reality that they know is not true.

In the cases discussed, George VI was an Advocate, the quinoa campaigners were Misinformers, and Colgate-Palmolive’s marketers were Misleaders.

The Texas DSHS might look like an Advocate to someone with pro-life views. But if the intention of the Texas DSHS was to create a false impression of the best current scientific understanding, then it too is a Misleader. Anyone who deliberately sets out to create a distorted impression of reality is a Misleader, regardless of the righteousness of their agenda or the truthfulness of their words.

‘It turns out that lies are often unnecessary,’ observed the BBC broadcaster Evan Davis, who has interviewed plenty of Misleaders. ‘A remarkable amount of powerful deception can be practised without any lies being told.’²³

Occasionally, communicators may have good reasons for misleading. Troop commanders may need to gloss over the likely danger of a military manoeuvre to keep morale high. Public health officials may need to downplay the risk of an epidemic to avoid widespread panic. ‘Politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand it be done,’ conceded Tony Blair.²⁴ You may feel the Texas DSHS was right to mislead if it saved unborn lives. It is not my purpose to tell you what is right or wrong but only to point out the need to consider the ethical dimension of such communications. You can decide for yourself whether misleading truths are ever justified.

Briefly, for the philosophers

Truth is a much-debated topic among philosophers. They argue over the relationship between truth and knowledge, the objectivity and universalism of truth, the place of truth in religion, and much else besides. There are plenty of books that cover such matters, but this isn’t one of them. I’ve read a few, and frankly they make my head hurt.

This book is intended to be a practical guide for communicators wanting to use true statements to persuade and inspire, and for anyone concerned that truths are being used to mislead them. It is not a work of philosophy. That said, now might be a good time to clarify what I mean by truths.

There are truths that are based in fact, and these ought to be fairly uncontroversial.fn1 The date of India’s independence or the boiling point of water are examples of factual truths that can be ascertained through research or scientific measurement. But people make plenty of statements that are not based in fact yet are nevertheless not falsehoods or lies. We talk about whether something is good or desirable, or how much it is worth. These are often subjective judgements, but we treat them like truths and might be inclined to argue with anyone who told us they were not true – at least for us. The same can be said for some of our predictions about the future, and some of our ideological or religious beliefs.

A definition of truth that incorporates subjective judgement, prediction and belief may be too broad for some tastes. But a book limited to factual truths would not give us a full understanding of how communicators shape reality by using true (or at least non-false) statements to persuade people to think and act in particular ways. If a respected food critic tells me that a particular dish is delicious, I’m happy to treat his judgement as a true statement and order accordingly. If an experienced civil engineer shouts, ‘This building is going to collapse!’ I will take her prediction as a true statement and start running for my life.

This book, then, is concerned not only with factual truths but also with those statements we act on as if they are true. For simplicity, I will refer to such beliefs, assertions, judgements and predictions as ‘truths’, by which I simply mean they are not known to be untrue. Communicators make credible non-factual statements all the time, so it’s important to understand when they are valid and how they might be used to influence us. ‘There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times,’ wrote Voltaire; this book seeks to include them.

My scope may be broad, but it does not include falsehoods. We will not be looking at lies, alternative facts, conspiracy theories, fake news or all the other suffocating detritus of the post-truth era. The many writers, commentators and journalists busy calling out the liars and fabricators of our age are doing sterling work. We will concentrate instead on those Misleaders who hide behind a fig leaf of truth.

A last word to any philosophers still reading. My talk of competing truths may have you suspecting I am a diabolical relativist who believes any truth is as good as any other, or that truths are really just opinions. Rest assured, I am not. I take an absolutist view of factual truths: the Truth is out there, even if we can only grasp fragments of it. When it comes to moral and value judgements, however, I take a somewhat more relativist position, as will become clear. Regarding the limits of personal knowledge, I am willing to accept well-reported facts as truths, even if I have not witnessed them myself. So I am perfectly content to say it is true that Ghana is a country in Africa, that David Bowie is dead, and that pigs can’t fly. If you are the kind of sceptic who distrusts statements like these, this book is probably not for you.

Four classes of competing truth

Truth will take us on a tour of the wonderfully diverse, creative and occasionally outrageous world of competing truths. Among other illustrative cases, we will look at the way Israeli schools teach history, the portrayal of narcotics over the decades, the strange new appeal of failure, how feminism is best defined, what happened after Hurricane Katrina, how politicians can argue that wages have both gone up and gone down, and why the introduction of autonomous vehicles will be a testing time for legislators. We will encounter numerous kinds of competing truth in politics, business, the media and everyday life. And we’ll look at some of the communications tactics used by both Advocates and

Misleaders. By the end, you should be well equipped to spot and neutralize the misleading truths that are all around you, and to communicate more effectively with family, friends and colleagues. Interpreting truth wisely and speaking truth compellingly will almost certainly make you richer, happier, better governed and more attractive (that’s a prediction, not a factual truth, so don’t hold me to it).

The book has four parts:

Part One: Partial truths

Most of our statements, while true, do not convey the whole truth. Partial truths stem from the complexity of even the most mundane subjects and are an unavoidable feature of the way we communicate. Our understanding of history is shaped by partial truths, and it in turn shapes us. Context can be critical to a proper understanding of things and events, but it can be described in markedly different ways. Statistics and other numbers are a rich source of competing truths in a world where many of us don’t always understand what those numbers mean. We have evolved to communicate largely in story form, but our stories necessarily leave out a lot of relevant detail.

Part Two: Subjective truths

People will fight for what is right. They will crawl over broken glass for the object of their desire. And they will queue around the block for a great price. To say that something is good or desirable or financially valuable is to voice a subjective truth. And because it is subjective, it can be changed. As we are for the most part motivated by perceived morality, desirability and financial value, understanding how to alter someone’s subjective truths may be the key to understanding how to persuade them to act differently.

Part Three: Artificial truths

Language is notoriously flexible. It can mean what we want it to mean if we apply definitions that suit us to the words we use. Similarly, the names we give products, events and policies can determine their success or failure. Both names and definitions are man-made – they are artificial truths. Communicators who establish new names or definitions to suit their purposes are in effect forging new truths. Humans are good at forging abstract things, be they currencies, companies, political entities or brands. And because they are human inventions, these social constructs are truths that can be easily modified.

Part Four: Unknown truths

When it comes to decisions on investment, marriage, education and much else in life, we act according to the predictions that we find most convincing. Such predictions may vary widely, and different people will adopt different ideas about the future. Until time passes and we find out which is right, they remain competing truths. We may never discover the real truth about religious and ideological beliefs, yet these are equally important motivators of millions. As long as we can’t prove them false, beliefs are for many of us a form of truth.

Select your truth and change the world

In his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell imagined a nightmarish society where bureaucrats from the ‘Ministry of Truth’ distort reality by disseminating lies and creating fictitious accounts of the past. A restrictive new language and the ‘Thought Police’ prevent citizens from thinking critically about government propaganda. Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, desperately tries to resist the government’s lies, telling himself, ‘There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.’

Just as Orwell’s dystopian vision of omnipresent surveillance seems to be coming true in a rather different form than the one he imagined, thanks to social media and wearable technology, so his fears for the integrity of the truth are turning out to be well founded but misdirected. It is not simply that we are being lied to; the more insidious problem is that we are routinely misled by the truth.

Life feels simpler when, like Winston Smith, we tell ourselves there is a single truth and everything else is a deviation from that truth – an error, a lie, an ‘untruth’. It’s disturbing to imagine that we can shape reality simply by choosing a different truth. The very idea of competing truths feels slippery, disingenuous, conniving.

Yet their impact can be immense.

Competing truths are found in almost every area of human activity, and the examples I will draw on reflect that diversity. It is in the nature of this subject that some of the examples will, like the Texas DSHS’s advice to pregnant women, be political or controversial. It shouldn’t matter whether you agree with my point of view in any one example but rather that you see the potential for different truths to be expressed and the consequences when they are.

Shaping reality through competing truths can be disorientating and confusing, especially when we challenge the validity of things we have long taken for granted. It can be exasperating and pedantic, as when statistics and definitions are used in artful but underhand ways. It can be exhilarating and enlightening when our understanding of the world suddenly shifts and new possibilities open up. Above all, competing truths are meaningful and relevant to all of us and, whether we like it or not, they are affecting our lives every day. We owe it to ourselves and our society to get better at recognizing them, using them responsibly and if necessary resisting them.

1

Complexity

Reality is complicated

On the table is an egg.

A simple, unambiguous statement.

Can you picture that egg?

Close your eyes for a moment and see the egg on a plain white table top.

How confident are you that you’re seeing the same egg as me?

Did you think of a chicken egg?

Why not a duck egg? Or an ostrich egg? How about an egg from a dinosaur, or a frog, or a sturgeon? Why not a human egg?

Or how about a jewelled Fabergé egg, a chocolate Easter egg or Humpty Dumpty?

Go back to the chicken egg. Did you see a whole egg in its shell, or was the egg cooked on a plate? Was it fried, scrambled or poached? If it was a complete egg, fresh from the box, did you see just the shell, or did you visualize the yolk and albumen? Did you think about the scrap of blood, the proteins and fats, the molecular structure of the different materials inside, the DNA and the thousands of genes it bears, the multitude of cellular processes they encode, the trillions of atoms, the astounding complexity of chemical pathways?

What about the symbolism, uses and cultural baggage of that egg? Did you think of a new beginning, a spark of creation? A representation of our entire universe? Perhaps you thought of cakes and meringues, or memorable egg scenes in Cool Hand Luke or Happy Feet? Did you see the egg as a protestor’s weapon or a savings vehicle? Did you see a painting of an egg, and, if so, is that actually an egg?

Eggs, it turns out, are complicated things.

In 1986, the Guardian newspaper ran a TV and cinema advert that has stuck in my mind like few others. In newsreel black and white, it showed a skinhead running away from an approaching car. The soundtrack was completely silent except for an authoritative voiceover: ‘An event seen from one point of view gives one impression.’ The same man is then shown from a different angle: he runs straight at a businessman, seemingly set on attacking him or stealing his briefcase. ‘Seen from another point of view it gives quite a different impression.’ Another cut, and we see the scene from above. A suspended load of construction material is juddering over the businessman’s head, out of control. The skinhead hauls the businessman aside, saving his life as the load crashes to the ground. ‘But it’s only when you get the whole picture you can fully understand what’s going on,’ concludes the voiceover.

Created by John Webster of BMP, ‘points of view’ is still cited as one of the best TV adverts ever made. A sizeable British audience came away with the strong suggestion that only the Guardian presents the world as it really is, rather than showing a single, politically motivated side of the story. It’s a compelling pitch and proved to be so successful that the newspaper returned to the ‘whole picture’ theme in a 2012 campaign.

The trouble is, no one really has the whole picture. Life is far too complicated for that.

Look out of the nearest window. What did you see? How many cars were there? What colour and make? How many different species of plants? Were there any manhole covers visible? What materials were the buildings constructed from? How many of their windows were open?

If fully describing the view from your window is hard, try summing up a single individual. Is your daughter, niece or sister doing better than her peers at school? If so, you’re most likely thinking of the grades she’s getting or perhaps the track races she’s winning. But are these really sufficient measures to assess a multi-faceted, fast-changing human being? How is her moral development coming along? Is she choosing healthy lunch options? How many likes do her selfies get?