“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies”
本帖最后由 李业猛1008 于 2012-11-15 23:18 编辑There is one Chinese proverb“ 三人市虎”, which explains a very simple principle of human’s behavior--following blindly. This kind of behavior is so dangerous that results in heavy losses for individuals, families or the whole country.
As we all know that the lies could easily change people’s perspective. Moreover, sometimes it can affect the common values. For example, if the experts of Tsinghua University tell the media that the raw tomato is harmful to the children’s IQ, I suppose that nearly 90% parents would stop buying tomatoes and tell their relatives the consequence of eating raw tomatoes. It is the real story of what is happening in China today. I believe we have already seen such behavior many times before and even no one, want to doubt about the truth of this news. What’s more, some media without ethics and the sense of responsibility may exaggerate the passive effect of this news. Obviously such behavior will lead to “a great discussion”. Thus the lies will change some part of the truth and sometimes could make people believe it, but finally it will be exposed to the truth one day.
So what is “conviction”? In Oxford dictionary, it means “a strong opinion or belief”. To some extent, conviction is equivalent to doctrine or dogma not truth or lies. Nietzsche thought that conviction is more dangerous than lies, because some people still can not believe the lies, which could only cheat people for a while. When you were a child, you possibly believed some sayings without a shadow of doubt, such as the advice from your parents and seemingly proved to be “right”. Actually, it is an absurdity. For instance, mother always described someone was a bad man and did not take care of what he said. So many years later, you find there is no definition of bad or good person. Nazi, which was titled the common enemy of human beings, successfully convinced thousands of men, women and children to discriminate against the Jews and kill them. Such conviction made all of Germanic people believe the validity of Nazi and no one doubted it. The conviction may create unimaginable power so that could destroy the whole world. That’s terrible! Hence as a citizen, we should have the ability to make a distinction between the convictions.
The last point, why Nietzsche said the conviction is dangerous to truth or what is the relationship between conviction and truth? We have learnt that the enemy of truth is lies. However, conviction is just like truth in a way. For example, it is the truth that North Korea is a dictatorship country. The people of North Korea do not agree with us and have diametrically opposed view that everything about capitalism is evil and badly off. The authority of North Korea is just implanting ideas that all of people have to be grateful to their greatest leaders’ contribution. Actually, the truth is that they are poor, developing slowly and lack of the human right or freedom. On the one hand, conviction could get one nation into fanaticism. On the other hand, truth could make one nation more rational and harmonious. It just reminds me of another saying in our text:“There are well—dressed foolish ideas just as there are well—dressed fools.”
The basic ability of men is thinking and self-reflect. As a student, I suppose that we should learn the ability to distinguish right from wrong and independent thinking. Taking Diaoyu island for example, Japan’s government is making a big mistake and are supposed to feel sorry for its behavior, but we should keep calm and shoulder our responsibility.
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