Some fail to separate perception from truth

Most people in Taiwan are familiar with the phrase, "that which can be named is not the constant way," which is the opening line of Lao Tzu's (老子) Taoist classic the Tao Te Ching (道德經). By this, Lao Tzu meant that any definition of the truth cannot encompass the absolute truth. One cannot express in words the true nature of things nor the principles of natural phenomena. Although these words were first articulated over two millennia ago, they are still supported by the social sciences and linguistics. Sociologists commonly accept that the truths held by a society are structurally related to the language that society uses, and that this truth is relative.

For example, the vast majority of US citizens know only of the Middle East through books and newspapers, and this has shaped their understanding of it. What's more, the language in which this information is transmitted is deeply rooted in a certain literary tradition. From Greek mythology through Dante's Divine Comedy to the works of modern European scholars, the Arab world has been portrayed as populated by greasy, lazy, dishonest, conniving and cruel individuals (see Edward Said's Orientalism).

Throughout this perceived truth has been taken by the majority of people in the West to be the incontrovertible truth. After Sept. 11, many politicians acted with this ingrained perception of the Middle East in mind, leading to the Iraq war and the violent death of tens of thousands of people. The whole situation is promising to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After Marco Polo's perception of China was accepted as truth by the West, 19th century China found itself carved up by the Western powers. The damage done then still resonates today.

We can see the disasters that can occur when people assume that their perception of the facts represents the truth. Lao Tzu's great contribution was in seeing the huge discrepancy between relative and absolute truth. It's a pity that over the years people have failed to see this as clearly as he did.

This lesson has also not been learned by certain sections of Taiwan's media. There are people in high places lining their own pockets as they pretend to work for the good of the people. There are high-profile characters who would rather spout rumor than bother verifying the facts. And there are legislators who talk rubbish on a daily basis.

The strange thing is that this kind of behavior is encouraged in the media. If things carry on like this, who knows what is going to happen to our peaceful society. Can people really have forgotten the so-called "Network 228 Incident," in which a female student from Tunghai University was put through the mill on account of groundless rumors, and that TVBS anchorwoman Pan Yen-fei (潘彥妃) was practically driven from the country by members of her own profession? The perceived facts behind these incidents were not as they seemed, but they still caused some people a lot of pain.

Taiwanese are the inheritors of China's 5000 years of culture, but everything they see around them undermines this glorious inheritance. One would be hard-pressed to find people in the media who didn't expect us to believe that what they say is good is wonderful, and what they say is bad is the devil incarnate. For Lao Tzu, good and bad did not constitute polar opposites, they were two sides of the same coin. We need to be careful when it comes to appearances, we need to consider the power of language and try to avoid the disasters that can occur when people are misled into taking the perceived as the gospel truth. If people could only take more notice of the opening line of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, Taiwan might become a more harmonious place.

F.Y. Kuo is professor of Information Systems at National Sun Yat-sen University.

TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER