Is truth valuable?
Now we all have grown up with certain values, values like telling the truth but why should we tell the truth?
I mean apart from its functional value why do we think telling the truth is actually a good thing? Why is not telling lies a good thing? certainly ancient greeks didn’t think truth telling as one of the qualities of a virtuous man. Take for example Odysseus who is a prolific liar so much so that when Athena (goddess of wisdom) rescues him he starts rattling lies upon lies to her and she then claims that she saved him because he is one of the most virtuous men alive. So certainly the goddess of wisdom is not thinking that truth telling is a necessary component for ethical behavior then why do we?
Nietzsche was putting forward the question on the very valuation of truth and desire to search for it his argument was that most of our lives we deal with lies, our senses deceive us, our systems hinge on lying, saying the truth in certain situation like telling your girlfriend she is fat could actually get you in trouble. So if the fact is that you deal more with lies than with truth and if this is the fact of our life shouldn’t we accommodate what we deal with more often and try to understand it better?
He also highlights this morality of truth telling wasn’t a concept until Christianity came about and made truth telling as one of the virtuous act that a decent human being should perform. Why is this a virtuous act is still a mystery and most people take it for granted the things they see in their lives as obvious. Nietzsche also says in his aphorisms that the desire to search for the truth is deadly and incompatible with human instinct to survive actually he called it the will to power. In fact he goes on to say that because of this very desire is the reason for so much of misery that surrounds us after who do you think is more blissful an ignorant man or a wise monk?
